1. What the Gates-Crowley “Teachable Moment” Really Teaches
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, August 04, 2009
Readers on the left will be shocked, if not incredulous, to learn that neither I nor any conservative I
know realized why the president asked Vice President Joseph Biden to join him, Harvard Professor
Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Cambridge police Sgt. James Crowley for their fabled “beer summit” at the
White House.
I had simply assumed that the president invited Biden in order to lessen any tension by having someone
with no connection to the case join the meeting. Likewise, another conservative, the producer of my
radio show, Allen Estrin, assumed that the vice president was in the area and was spontaneously invited
to join the trio. My engineer, Sean McConnell, just wondered why the vice president was there.
We were all blindsided by the reason that liberals apparently instinctively understood: to provide racial
balance, as it wouldn’t look right if Sgt. Crowley were outnumbered two to one by blacks. In the words
of the New York Times coverage of the event: “to add balance to the photo op that the White House
presented: two black guys, two white guys, sitting around a table.”
This is highly instructive.
The fact that Crowley was outnumbered three to one by liberals meant little or nothing to most
Americans on the left, because they deem race far more significant than values. Most conservatives, on
the other hand, saw the president, the vice-president, the Harvard professor and the police officer, not
two blacks and two whites. Indeed, such a calculation would have struck most conservatives as absurd:
Was Sgt. Crowley supposed to think, “Hey, great, another white is at the table; now I feel secure”?
In order to deflect attention from the president’s gaffe in declaring that the Cambridge police “acted
stupidly” right after acknowledging both that he was a personal friend of Louis Gates and that he did
not have all the facts, the president and his liberal supporters have told us that the Crowley-Gates
incident would be a great teachable moment for al Americans.

2. It has indeed turned out to be, but not at all in the way the president has meant it to be.
All it has taught, indeed reconfirmed, is how much more race-conscious the left is.
And it has taught us once again us that no matter how little anti-black racism actually exists in
America, most blacks and nearly all of the left deny this. That the vast majority of non-blacks are either
proud of the fact or could not care less that a black man is president of the United States apparently
means next to nothing to most blacks and most liberals of all colors. Too many blacks and liberals
continue to see whites as racist and therefore to see black-white interactions as race-centered even
when they are not.
In my 27 years of broadcasting I have taken a many calls on air from black listeners some of whom
have told me that I do not what I am talking about when I speak about how little white racism there is
in America. I am not a black, they argue, and therefore cannot possibly know how bad it is. These
callers tell me that they experience racism every day as a black person.
My response has always been to ask, “OK. What was the racist incident you experienced today?”
In every instance, the response was something along the lines of, “Well, not today.”
To which I have always responded with another question: “OK, what was the racist incident you
experienced yesterday?”
And, again, nothing was ever cited.
I don’t give up. I then ask the caller when the last time was that he or she experienced racism. Answers
to that are usually unclear.

3. My point is not that there is no anti-black racism in America. It is that there is much less than most
blacks and liberals think. Even when one assumes that ill treatment was due to racism, it is often
difficult to know for certain.
I then provide my listeners with this example: Years ago driving home from synagogue, both my sons
and I were wearing yarmulkes, or skull caps. A convertible car filled with young boys sped past me and
yelled into the car “F--- you” and called my wife a “b---ch.”
I then said to my family, “I have finally experienced anti-Semitism in America.”
I decided to follow the car and, to my shock, they screamed the same obscenities at other cars, none of
whose occupants were discernibly Jewish.
It turned out that the event was not what I was certain, and had every reason to believe, was an example
of anti-Semitism, but just an example of young thugs acting thuggish.
So here’s the teachable moment: Harvard historian Louis Gates talked back to a police officer because
he was treated as a suspect when he felt he should not be, given his fame as a Harvard professor. The
professor was certain that the only possible explanation for such treatment was that he, Gates, was a
black and the officer just another racist white policeman. The professor was wrong. The president was
wrong. The press is wrong. Liberals are wrong. Even most blacks are wrong.
Many American non-blacks -- even those who did not vote for Barack Obama -- were hopeful that the
election of a black as president of the United States would mean the end or at least the beginning of the
end of the black and liberal view of America as racist.
And here’s the other teachable moment: We were quite naïve. As far as most liberals and blacks are
concerned, nothing has changed.
Too bad.

4. 10 Questions for Supporters of 'ObamaCare'
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
1. President Barack Obama repeatedly tells us that one reason national health care is needed is that we
can no longer afford to pay for Medicare and Medicaid. But if Medicare and Medicaid are fiscally
insolvent and gradually bankrupting our society, why is a government takeover of medical care for the
rest of society a good idea? What large-scale government program has not eventually spiraled out of
control, let alone stayed within its projected budget? Why should anyone believe that nationalizing
health care would create the first major government program to "pay for itself," let alone get smaller
rather than larger over time? Why not simply see how the Democrats can reform Medicare and
Medicaid before nationalizing much of the rest of health care?
2. President Obama reiterated this past week that "no insurance company will be allowed to deny you
coverage because of a pre-existing medical condition." This is an oft-repeated goal of the president's
and the Democrats' health care plan. But if any individual can buy health insurance at any time, why
would anyone buy health insurance while healthy? Why would I not simply wait until I got sick or
injured to buy the insurance? If auto insurance were purchasable once one got into an accident, why
would anyone purchase auto insurance before an accident? Will the Democrats next demand that life
insurance companies sell life insurance to the terminally ill? The whole point of insurance is that the
healthy buy it and thereby provide the funds to pay for the sick. Demanding that insurance companies
provide insurance to everyone at any time spells the end of the concept of insurance. And if the answer
is that the government will now make it illegal not to buy insurance, how will that be enforced? How
will the government check on 300 million people?
3. Why do supporters of nationalized medicine so often substitute the word "care" for the word
"insurance?" it is patently untrue that millions of Americans do not receive health care. Millions of
Americans do not have health insurance but virtually every American (and non-American on American
soil) receives health care.
4. No one denies that in order to come close to staying within its budget health care will be rationed.
But what is the moral justification of having the state decide what medical care to ration?
5. According to Dr. David Gratzer, health care specialist at the Manhattan Institute, "While 20 years
ago pharmaceuticals were largely developed in Europe, European price controls made drug
development an American enterprise. Fifteen of the 20 top-selling drugs worldwide this year were
birthed in the United States." Given how many lives -- in America and throughout the world –
American pharmaceutical companies save, and given how expensive it is to develop any new drug, will
the price controls on drugs envisaged in the Democrats' bill improve or impair Americans' health?
6. Do you really believe that private insurance could survive a "public option"? Or is this really a cover
for the ideal of single-payer medical care? How could a private insurance company survive a "public
option" given that private companies have to show a profit and government agencies do not have to –

5. and given that a private enterprise must raise its own money to be solvent and a government option has
access to others' money -- i.e., taxes?
7. Why will hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies do nearly as superb a job as they now do
if their reimbursement from the government will be severely cut? Haven't the laws of human behavior
and common sense been repealed here in arguing that while doctors, hospitals and drug companies will
make significantly less money they will continue to provide the same level of uniquely excellent care?
8. Given how many needless procedures are ordered to avoid medical lawsuits and how much money
doctors spend on medical malpractice insurance, shouldn't any meaningful "reform" of health care
provide some remedy for frivolous malpractice lawsuits?
9. Given how weak the U.S. economy is, given how weak the U.S. dollar is, and given how much in
debt the U.S. is in, why would anyone seek to have the U.S. spend another trillion dollars? Even if all
the other questions here had legitimate answers, wouldn't the state of the U.S. economy alone argue
against national health care at this time?
10. Contrary to the assertion of President Obama -- "we spend much more on health care than any other
nation but aren't any healthier for it" -- we are healthier. We wait far less time for procedures and
surgeries. Our life expectancy with virtually any major disease is longer. And if you do not count
deaths from violent crime and automobile accidents, we also have the longest life expectancy. Do you
think a government takeover of American medicine will enable this medical excellence to continue?
Americans Are Beginning to Understand the Left
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
There is only one good thing about the Obama administration's attempts to nationalize most health care
and to begin to control Americans' energy consumption through cap-and-trade: clarity about the left.
These attempts are enabling more and more Americans to understand the thinking and therefore the
danger of the left.
The left has its first president -- with the possible exception of Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- and for the
first time controls the Democratic Party and both houses of Congress. In the name of compassion for
the sick and the poor and in the name of preventing worldwide environmental catastrophe, it is
attempting to remake America.
In so doing some principles of the left are becoming clearer to more Americans:
Principle One: The left, as distinct from traditional liberals, is not, and has never been, interested in
creating wealth. The left is no more interested in creating wealth than Christians are in creating
Muslims or Muslims in creating Christians. The left is interested in redistributing wealth, not creating
it. The left spends the wealth that private enterprise and entrepreneurial risk-taking individuals create.

6. The left does not perceive that poverty is the human norm and therefore asks, "Why is there poverty?"
instead of asking the economic question that matters: Why is there wealth? And the obvious result of
the left's disinterest in why wealth is created is that the left does not know how to create it.
Principle Two: The reason the left asks why there is poverty instead of why there is wealth is that the
left's preoccupying ideal is equality -- not economic growth. And those who are preoccupied with
equality are more troubled by wealth than by poverty. Ask almost anyone on the left -- not a liberal, but
a leftist like Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -- which society they consider more desirable, a
society in which all its members were equally lower middle class or one in which some were poor,
most were middle class, and some were rich (i.e., America today). And whatever they say, in their
hearts, the further left they are the more they would prefer the egalitarian society.
Principle Three: The left everywhere seeks to make as big and powerful a state as possible. It does so
because only the state can redistribute society's wealth. And because only a strong and powerful state
can impose values on society. The idea of small government, the American ideal since its inception, is
the antithesis of the left's ideal.
The cap-and-trade bill's control of American energy and the "ObamaCare" takeover of American health
care will mean an unprecedented expansion of the state. Added to increased taxes and the individual
becomes less and less significant as the state looms ever larger. Americans will be left to decide little
more than what they do with vacation time -- just as Western Europeans do. Other questions are largely
left to the state.
Principle Four: The left imposes its values on others whenever possible and to the extent possible. That
is why virtually every totalitarian regime in the 20th century was left-wing. Inherent to all left-wing
thought is a totalitarian temptation. People on the left know that not only are their values morally
superior to conservative values, but that they themselves are morally superior to conservatives. Thus,
for example, the former head of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean, could say in all seriousness, “In
contradistinction to the Republicans, we don't think children ought to go to bed hungry at night.”
Therefore, the morally superior have the right, indeed the duty, to impose their values on the rest of us:
what light bulbs we use, what cars we drive, what we may ask a prospective employee, how we may
discipline our children, and, of course, how much of our earnings we may keep.
It is dishonest to argue that the right wants to impose its values to anywhere near the extent the left
does. This can be demonstrated to a fifth-grader: Who wants more power -- those who want to govern a
big state or those who want to govern a small state?
The president of the United States and the much of the Democratic Party embody these left-wing
principles. Right now, America's only hope of staying American rather than becoming European lies in
making these principles as clear as possible to as many Americans as possible. The left is so giddy with
power right now, we actually have a chance.
Why I Came to Honduras
Dennis Prager

7. Tuesday, July 14, 2009
"Why have you come to Honduras?"
That is the question posed to me by Hondurans, surprised that anyone from the outside world, let alone
from the media, cares enough to now visit their small country (population 8 million), a country that
they themselves consider relatively insignificant.
The question is a valid one. The U.S. State Department has issued a travel alert (through July 29)
warning Americans against coming here. There are very few outsiders here now. The plane from
Houston to San Pedro Sula, Honduras' second largest city, was almost empty, and the few passengers
were nearly all Hondurans. The hotels are largely empty.
It is all eerily reminiscent of Jerusalem during the height of the Intifada terror. I went there then for the
same reason I have come to Honduras now -- to broadcast my show and thereby show solidarity with
an unfairly isolated country, and to encourage, by example, people to visit Israel then and Honduras
now.
Honduras has joined Israel as a pariah nation. The United Nations has condemned Honduras by a vote
of acclamation, and the Organization of American States has suspended it.
The way in which nearly all the world's media portray the legal, Supreme Court-ordered ouster of
President Manuel (Mel) Zelaya is one major reason for the universal opprobrium. Because military
men took part in the deportation of the sitting president, it has been portrayed as a classic Latin
American "military coup," and who can support a military coup?
The lack of context in which this ouster took place has prevented the vast majority of the world's news
watchers and readers from understanding what has happened.
I wonder how many people who bother to read the news -- as opposed to only listen to or watch news
reports -- know:
-- Zelaya was plotting a long-term, possibly lifetime, takeover of the Honduran government through
illegally changing the Honduran Constitution.
-- Zelaya had personally led a mob attack on a military facility to steal phony "referendum" ballots that
had been printed by the Venezuelan government.
-- Weeks earlier, in an attempt to intimidate the Honduran attorney general -- as reported by The Wall
Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady, one of the only journalists in the world who regularly reports
the whole story about Honduras -- "some 100 agitators, wielding machetes, descended on the attorney
general's office. 'We have come to defend this country's second founding,' the group's leader reportedly
said. 'If we are denied it, we will resort to national insurrection.'"
-- No member of the military has assumed a position of power as a result of the "military coup."
-- Zelaya's own party, the Liberal Party, supported his removal from office and deportation from
Honduras.

8. -- The Liberal Party still governs Honduras.
The United States is threatening to suspend all aid to one of the three poorest countries in the Western
Hemisphere in order to force that country -- against its own laws and with the inevitable violence it
would entail -- to allow Zelaya back as president.
Yet, no Honduran I talked to said he or she wanted Honduras to cave in to the American financial
threat. "We will tighten our belts," one man struggling to make a living told me. Indeed, what is
happening is that Hondurans are coming to realize that American aid -- even purely humanitarian aid --
comes with strings.
In our increasingly morally confused -- i.e., left-wing influenced -- world, even America is having a
harder and harder time distinguishing between right and wrong as it comes to value realpolitik and a
desire to be loved, from Iran to Venezuela to Honduras, more than it values liberty. To the extent that
Americans will be loved, it will be thanks to supporting liberty and thanks to the work of American
charities such as Cure International, with its pediatric orthopedic hospital here and in other
impoverished places (www.cureinternational.org).
Let there be no ambiguity here. Little Honduras was supposed to be the next country to lose its liberties
as it joined the anti-American, pro-Iranian Latin American left. But Little Honduras decided to fight
back. And this has infuriated Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, who will surely attempt to foment violence in
Honduras.
Therefore, if you love liberty, you will do whatever you can do help Honduras resist Chavez and his
allies, which include the United Nations and Organization of American States.
There are many ways to do that. Buy Honduran goods. Write your representatives in Washington to
back the present, law-based Honduran government. And, yes, even visit this friendly beleaguered place.
When the world's governments isolate a country, with few exceptions, that's all you need to know about
who the good guys are.
Obama Is in Russia, but Honduras Is Where the Action Is
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
The importance of the summit meeting in Moscow between President Barack Obama and Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev pales in comparison to the events taking place in Honduras.
Whether or not the United States and Russia reduce their nuclear arsenals is ultimately meaningless.
But whether Hugo Chavez and Raul Castro are victorious in Honduras or whether the movement
toward left-wing authoritarianism is finally defeated in a Latin American country is extremely
significant.

9. The courage of the pro-liberty forces in Honduras is almost miraculous. It is almost too good to be true,
given Honduras' consequent isolation in the world.
Even if you know little or nothing about the crisis in Honduras, nearly all you need to know in order to
ascertain which side is morally right is this: Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, Nicaragua's Daniel Ortega,
Cuba's Castro brothers, the United Nations, and the Organization of American States are all lined up
against Honduras.
And what troubles these good people? They claim that there was a military coup in Honduras that
renders the present government illegal.
Here, in brief, are the facts. You decide.
The president of Honduras, Jose Manuel Zelaya, a protege of Hugo Chavez, decided that he wanted to
be able to be president for more than his one term that ends this coming January -- perhaps for life.
However, because the histories of Honduras and Latin America are replete with authoritarians and
dictators, Honduras's constitution absolutely forbids anyone from governing that country for more than
one term.
So, Zelaya decided to follow Chavez's example and find a way to change his country's constitution. He
decided to do this on his own through a referendum, without the congressional authorization demanded
by Honduras's constitution. He even had the ballots printed in Venezuela.
As Mary Anastasia O'Grady, who writes The Americas column in the Wall Street Journal, explains: "A
constituent assembly can only be called through a national referendum approved by its Congress. But
Mr. Zelaya declared the vote on his own and had Mr. Chavez ship him the necessary ballots from
Venezuela."
The Honduras Supreme Court ruled Zelaya's nonbinding referendum unconstitutional, and then
instructed the military not to implement the vote as it normally does. When the head of the armed
forces obeyed the legal authority, the Honduran Supreme Court, rather than President Zelaya, the
president fired him and personally led a mob to storm the military base where the Venezuela-made
ballots were being safeguarded.
As Jorge Hernandez Alcerro, former Honduran ambassador to the United States, wrote, "Mr. Zelaya
and small segments of the population tried to write a new constitution, change the democratic system
and seek his re-election, which is prohibited by the constitution."
In order to stop this attempt to subvert the Honduran constitution, while keeping Honduras under the
rule of law and preventing a Chavez-like dictatorship from developing in its country, the Honduran
Supreme Court ordered the military to arrest Zelaya. They did so and expelled him to neighboring
Costa Rica to prevent certain violence.
Was this a "military coup" as we understand the term? Columnist Mona Charen answered this best:
"There was an attempted coup in Honduras, but it was Zelaya who initiated it, not his opponents."
Or, to put in another way: When did a military coup ever take place that was ordered by that country's
supreme court, that was supported by the political party of the president who was overthrown, in which

10. not one person was injured, let alone killed, and which replaced the ousted the president with the
president of the country's congress, a member of the same party as the ousted president?
But none of this matters to the United Nations, which never met a left-wing tyrant it didn't find
appealing. That is why the president of the U.N. General Assembly, a former Sandinista foreign
minister, Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, accompanied Zelaya in the airplane on Zelaya's first attempt to
return to Honduras on July 5. (Brockmann, among his other radical moral positions, is so virulently
anti-Israel that the Israeli Ambassador to the United Nations threatened not to attend the U.N.
Holocaust Memorial Day event if Brockmann showed up.)
And none of this matters to the OAS, which just lifted its ban on Cuba's membership and which says
nothing about Chavez's shutting down of Venezuela's opposition radio and television stations.
And none of this matters to the world's left-wing media. Thus, on July 1, a writer for the United
Kingdom newspaper The Guardian penned this insight: "There is no excuse for this coup. … The battle
between Zelaya and his opponents pits a reform president who is supported by labor unions and social
organizations against a Mafia-like, drug-ridden, corrupt political elite." To the Guardian writer, Zelaya
was a "reform president." Lenin's useful idiots never die out.
And the Los Angeles Times editorial page wrote: "Even though the Honduran Congress and military
may believe they are defending the country against a would-be dictator, the ends don't justify the
means."
Quite a great deal of foolishness in one sentence. That the Los Angeles Times does not believe that
Zelaya is a would-be dictator is mind-numbing. As for the cliche that "the ends don't justify the
means," in fact they quite often do. That is one of the ways in which we measure means. One assumes
that while the Los Angeles Times believes that Americans should be law-abiding, it agrees with Rosa
Parks having broken the law. The ends (fighting segregation) justified the means (breaking the law).
If Honduras is hung out to dry, if America suspends trade and economic aid, the forces arrayed against
liberty in Latin America will have won a major victory. On the other hand, if Honduras is not
abandoned now, those Iran-supporting, America-hating, liberty-loathing forces will have suffered a
major defeat.
Even members of the Obama administration recognize this. As quoted in the Washington Post, Jeffrey
Davidow, a retired U.S. ambassador who served as President Obama's special adviser for the recent
Summit of the Americas, said:
"The threats against democracy in Latin America … are not those coming from military coups, but
rather from governments which are ignoring checks and balances, overriding other elements of
government."
Let your representatives in Congress know that America needs to stand with liberty, not with Castro,
Ortega, Zelaya, Chavez, the OAS, and the U.N. And buy Honduran goods. I am smoking a terrific
Honduran cigar as I write these words: God bless Honduras.

11. Stoning of Soraya M.: See This Film (or Stop Complaining About Hollywood)
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
With the possible exception of university administrations, there is no institution as bereft of courage as
Hollywood.
In Hollywood courage is defined as savaging oil, power and tobacco executives on film. Or producing
yet another movie on the evils of the Iraq War. But if courage means doing what is unpopular --
especially among one’s peers -- I can recall precious few politically incorrect films made in the last
decade ("The Dark Knight" comes to mind as a possible exception).
How many politically incorrect movies has Hollywood made in the last generation? How many films,
for instance, have depicted communist evil? Given that Communism murdered more than 100 million
innocents -- in peacetime! -- and enslaved about 1 billion more, one would think that Hollywood would
have made a fair number of movies depicting the horrors of communism. But aside from "Dr. Zhivago"
and "The Killing Fields," I cannot think of any. There are, of course, innumerable films depicting Nazi
evil -- as well there should be -- but it takes no courage to make films depicting Nazis as evil.
Likewise, given Sept. 11, the slaughter of innocents around the world, and the atrocities within the
Muslim world committed by “Islamists,” “Islamic fundamentalists,” “jihadists,” “Muslim radicals”
“Islamofascists” -- or whatever other term one prefers -- one would think that Hollywood would have
made many films on this subject. But it hasn't.
Yet, now, released as if by Providence the week after the fraudulent elections in Iran and the
suppression and murder of Iranian dissidents, is a film about the nature of the radical Muslims who
govern Iran. Titled "The Stoning of Soraya M.," the film depicts events based on the true story of a
woman stoned to death in a rural village in Iran in 1986 for allegedly committing adultery.
If you want to understand the type of people who run Iran, see this film. If you want to understand why
men and women risk their lives to demonstrate against the fascist theocracy that rules Iran, see this
film. The film is about the type of people who become “supreme leader” (Ali Khamanei) or president
of Iran (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad). It is about their mendacity, their use of religion to commit barbarity,
and, of course, their despicable treatment of women.
And don’t see it solely in order to understand what the dissidents in Iran are fighting -- though that
would be an entirely valid reason. See it also because it is a powerful theatrical and emotional
experience. Washington Post reviewer Dan Zak wrote that he wept while watching the movie. The
Wall Street Journal described "The Stoning of Soraya M." in these words: “This is classic tragedy in
semi-modern dress that means to horrify, and does so more successfully than any film in recent
memory.” Los Angeles Times film reviewer Kevin Thomas wrote that the film, achieves “the impact of
a Greek tragedy through its masterful grasp of suspense and group psychology, and some superb
acting.” And Claudia Puig of USAToday called the film “emotionally explosive,” a “shattering and
powerful drama.”
On the other hand, Amnesty International loathed the film. Which is another good reason to see it. This
organization is morally confused. It has become a leftist organization in the guise of a human rights

12. organization. It calls the film “sensationalist” because “the audience response is likely to be disgust and
revulsion at Iranians themselves, who are portrayed as primitive and blood-thirsty savages.” I wonder if
there are 10 people who see this film who will then conclude that Iranians in general -- as opposed to
many religious fundamentalists among them -- are “primitive and bloodthirsty savages.”
Furthermore, Amnesty International argues, Iranians and foreign human rights organizations are
already fighting for women and against such atrocities as stoning. Therefore, the film is unnecessary. If
you don’t follow that argument, you are not alone.
Finally, the most important reason to see the film could be this:
Many of us lament Hollywood’s lack of courage, its lack of moral seriousness, and its political
correctness. Here, then, is a courageous, morally deep, and politically incorrect film that mainstream
reviewers -- as cited above -- have lavished praise on. It should be the ideal film for serious Americans
who properly complain about Hollywood’s offerings. But if a riveting drama with a courageous theme,
Oscar-level acting, which is as relevant as today’s headlines, fails at the box office, Hollywood will
have been vindicated.
It therefore seems clear to me that those who do not see this film have forfeited the right to complain
about Hollywood.
Senator Embarrassment, D-Calif
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Last week, a brief moment in time captured much that has gone wrong with post-'60s liberalism and
feminism.
Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers was testifying at a hearing before the
Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. At one point during his responses to questions
posed by the Committee Chair, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., the senator interrupted the general to
admonish him about using the word "ma'am" when addressing her:
"You know, do me a favor," Boxer said in an annoyed tone of voice. "Could you say 'senator' instead of
'ma'am?' It's just a thing; I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd appreciate it. Yes, thank you."
"Yes, senator," the humiliated general responded.
The oxygen was sucked out of the room by Sen. Boxer's remarks.

13. It is hard to know where to begin in describing how reduced the U.S. Senate was at that moment. It is
not due to differing politics that many in California are embarrassed to have Boxer as their senator; few
Californians who differ from Sen. Dianne Feinstein are embarrassed by her.
To think that a body once called "the world's most deliberative" was reduced to this juvenile level is to
mourn for America. The immaturity of a U.S. senator needing to ask to always be responded to as
"senator" rather than "ma'am" in an ongoing dialogue with someone -- of equal stature, it should be
noted -- should be self-evident to anyone.
However, in case it is not, two arguments should make this clear.
First, people in the military are taught to call their superiors "ma'am" and "sir." Thus, for example, a
sergeant responding to a general will say, "Yes, sir," to a male general and, "Yes, ma'am," to a female
general. Though not in the military, I always feel honored when a caller to my radio show says calls me
sir. And I always have renewed respect for the military for inculcating that respectful form of address
into its members.
To object to being called sir or ma'am by anyone, especially a member of the military and especially a
high ranking member of the military is to betray an ignorance of the military and a tone deafness to
civility that is appalling in anyone, especially a member of the United States Senate .
Second, and both more revealing and more instructive, is to understand how inconceivable it would be
for a male senator to make such comments. Neither a Democrat nor Republican could imagine a male
senator interrupting the testimony of a brigadier general to admonish him publicly, "You know, do me
a favor. Could you say 'senator' instead of 'sir?' It's just a thing. I worked so hard to get that title, so I'd
appreciate it."
If a male senator had said that, he would rightly be regarded as insecure, narcissistic, arrogant, and
juvenile. Which is precisely why no male senator would ever say such a thing: He would know that he
would be the laughingstock of the U.S. Senate.
For example, every Obama press conference transcript I read included journalists calling President
Obama "sir," as was true for previous presidents. Can one imagine President Obama halting the
conference to announce that because he had worked hard to earn the title, he expects never to be called
"sir," but only "president"? It is inconceivable. People would have thought he had lost his mind.
Why did Boxer fail to think that way?
The answer is not only because she happens to act foolishly and childishly. The reason is deeper.
Liberalism has lowered expectations of behavior for everyone in America except white Christian
heterosexual males. They are the only Americans from whom dignified and mature conduct is always
expected. Liberals treat women, blacks, Hispanics, gays, and many non-Christians, with what is known
as the soft bigotry of low expectations. Many liberal women, blacks, Hispanics, and gays know that and
use it to get away with conduct and speech that no WASP heterosexual male could. People rise or
descend to the level of behavior expected of them.
That is why those 17 seconds in the U.S. Senate were so revealing and worthy of attention. They
encapsulated the way in which modern liberalism has lowered the bar of civility for so many in
America. And they revealed -- yet another time -- why this particular senator from California is an

14. embarrassment to her colleagues, her state, and the U.S. miltary. It was not, unfortunately, an
embarrassment to Barbara Boxer.
Dear Iranians: Don't Count on America (or Any Country Led by Left)
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
"The administration has remained as quiet as possible during the Iranian election season and in the days
of street protests since Friday's vote."
-- Washington Post , Monday June 15, 2009
"We're going to withhold comment. … I mean we're just waiting to see."
-- Vice-President Joe Biden
"We are monitoring the situation as it unfolds in Iran but we, like the rest of the world, are waiting and
watching to see what the Iranian people decide."
-- Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
"Most countries appeared to be taking a wait-and-see approach, including the European Union and
China, Germany, Italy and Japan -- nations with strong economic ties to Iran. France said it was closely
following the situation."
-- Associated Press, June 13, 2009
For those who look to "world opinion," "the opinion of mankind," or to the United Nations for moral
guidance or for coming to the aid of victims of oppression, the past few days and presumably the next
few days in Iran, provide yet another example of their uselessness.
A million or more Iranians are demonstrating against last Friday's obviously stolen election of
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and the world -- except for the lowlifes who rule places like Venezuela and
Syria and who immediately sent their effusive congratulations to Ahmadinejad -- is quiet. The world is
"closely following the situation," just as it followed the situations of the Jews during the Holocaust, the
Ukrainians, the Chinese under Mao, the Rwandans, the Cambodians, Tibetans, and so many others.
I have long believed that the citizens of most free countries do not deserve the gift of freedom that they
have. Few have any interest in promoting freedom, only in having it for themselves. Insofar as other
countries are concerned what matters to most free countries, as to dictatorships, is power.

15. That is what America and Europe are watching -- where the power in Iran will go. Whoever wins will
get free America and free Europe's respect.
Now it may be argued that if the American president speaks out in support of those demonstrating for
free elections in Iran, it will be counterproductive.
How exactly? What will the unelected President Ahmadinejad and the unelected Supreme Ruler, Grand
Ayatollah, the pre-medieval Ali Khamenei do? Get angry at America? Threaten to annihilate another
country? Start building nuclear arms? Stone women who commit sexual sins? Hey, wait, haven't they
done all that already?
As bad as most of the world's countries are, those led by left-wing governments are even worse when it
comes to defending democracy.
A primary reason America is "waiting" and "watching" and "monitoring" while Iranians are beaten in
the streets of Tehran is that the country is led by the left.
Compare the Canadian reaction, now that it has a conservative government:
On the very next day after the Iranian elections, according to CNN, "Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister
Lawrence Cannon told reporters in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Saturday, that Canada was 'deeply
concerned' about allegations of voting irregularities. 'We're troubled by reports of intimidation of
opposition candidates' offices by security forces.'"
Even usually appeasing Germany, now led by a more conservative government, had a sharper response
than America:
As reported by CNN, "German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier told ARD Sunday that the
Iranian ambassador in Berlin would be summoned to explain the treatment of protesters against the
result. 'I have already prompted Iran, together with European colleagues today, to quickly shed light on
what has happened there -- if one can take the announced election results there seriously or not," he
added.
And Germany's Deutsche Welle reported on Monday, June 15:
"German Chancellor Angela Merkel says she is very concerned and condemns the wave of arrests
following the Iranian election."
Now compare Labor-led Britain's response:
As reported by CNN: "U.K. Foreign Secretary David Miliband said Saturday that the U.K. government
had 'followed carefully, and admired, the passion and debate during the Iranian election campaign. We
have also heard the concerns about the counting of ballots expressed by two of the candidates. This is a
matter for the Iranian authorities to address. We will continue to follow developments.'"
"This is a matter for the Iranian authorities to address." Surely a proud moment for Britain.

16. The best example comes, as it often does, from that quintessential man of the left, former President of
the United States Jimmy Carter, speaking from -- where else? – the Palestinian City of Ramallah: "I
think this election has brought out a lot of opposition to (Ahmadinejad's} policies in Iran, and I'm sure
he'll listen to those opinions and hopefully moderate his position."
Not everyone on the left is "sure" that Ahmadinejad will "listen" to his opponents' opinions. But that
level of naivete regarding evil is almost exclusive to the left.
The Speech President Obama Won’t Give in Egypt
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
This week, President Barack Obama is scheduled to give a major address in Cairo to the Muslim world.
He is likely to reiterate what he has stated previously to Muslim audiences, that America has no battle
with Islam, deeply respects Islam and the Muslim world, and apologizes for any anti-Muslim sentiment
that any Americans may express.
Here is what an honest address would sound like:
"Thank you for the honor of addressing the Egyptian people and the wider Muslim world.
"I am here primarily to dispel some of the erroneous beliefs many Muslims have about America and to
thereby reassure you that America has no desire to be at war with the Muslim world.
"To my great disappointment, many Muslims have come to believe that my country has declared war
on Muslims and Islam.
"Because of this widespread belief, I said in an interview with al-Arabiya a few months ago, that we
need to restore “the same respect and partnership that America had with the Muslim world as recently
as 20 or 30 years ago.”
"Lets’ look a little deeper at that relationship. For the truth is, as noted by the Pulitzer-Prize winning
columnist for the American newspaper the Washington Post, Charles Krauthammer, in the last 20-30
years America did not just respect Muslims, it bled for Muslims. We Americans engaged in five
military campaigns on behalf of Muslims, each one resulting in the liberation of a Muslim people:
Bosnia, Kosovo, Kuwait, Afghanistan and Iraq.
"Bosnia and Kosovo, as well as the failed 1992-93 Somalia intervention to feed starving African
Muslims -- in which] 43 Americans were killed -- were all humanitarian exercises. In none of them was
there a significant U.S. strategic interest at stake. So, in fact, in these 20 years, my country, the United
States of America has done more for suffering and oppressed Muslims than any other nation, Muslim
or non-Muslim.

17. "While I recognize that gratitude is the rarest positive human quality, I need to say -- because candor is
the highest form respect -- that America has not only not received little gratitude from the Muslim
world, it has been the object of hatred, mass murder, and economic attack from Muslim individuals,
groups, and countries.
"Just to cite a few of many examples from the last 40 years:
"In 1973, Muslim terrorists attacked the American embassy in Sudan and murdered our country’s
ambassador, Cleo Noel, and the chief deputy of the mission, George C. Moore. Later in 1973, the Arab
oil embargo against America sent my country into a long and painful recession. In 1977, Muslim
militants murdered the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Frances E. Meloy, and Robert O.Waring, the U.S.
economic counselor. In 1979 radical Muslims violently attacked my country’s embassy in Teheran, and
for 14 months held American diplomats hostage, often in appalling conditions. In 1998, Muslim
militants bombed the American embassy in Nairobi, killing 12 Americans and 280 Kenyans, and
bombed our embassy in Tanzania, killing another 11 Americans. Then, on Sept. 11, 2001, 19 Muslims
who had been living in America slit the throats of American pilots and flight attendants and then flew
airplanes into civilian buildings in New York City, burning 3,000 innocent Americans to death.
"So, my friends here in Egypt, between America and the Muslim world, who exactly has been making
war on whom?
"I have enormous differences with my predecessor, President George W. Bush. But please remember
that less than a week after thousands of Americans were slaughtered in the name of your religion,
President Bush went to the Islamic Center in Washington, D.C., and announced that Islam was a
religion of peace. Moreover, in a country of 300 million people, of whom only a few million are
Muslim, there is virtually no recorded incident of anti-mosque or other anti-Muslim violence despite
the butchery of 9/11 and the popular support for Osama Bin Laden that we saw in the Muslim world
after 9/11.
"I ask you to please ask yourselves what Egypt’s reaction would have been had 19 Christians, in the
name of Christianity, slaughtered 3,000 Egyptians. How would the Christians of Egypt and elsewhere
in the Middle East have fared?
"As it is, because of persecution by Muslim majorities, Christians have been leaving the Middle East in
such great numbers that for the first time since Christ, there are large parts of the Middle East that have
become empty of both Jews and Christians.
"Yet, at the same time, millions of Muslims have moved to Western countries and to America. It is fair
to say that the freest, and often the safest, place in the world for a practicing Muslim is the United
States of America.
"Muslim-Americans are treated exactly as other Americans are treated. It is exceedingly rare to hear
any anti-Muslim bigotry in my country. And while there is some criticism of the Muslim world, but
there is far more criticism of Christianity in America than of Islam.
"Unfortunately, in much of the Muslim world today anti-Jewish speeches and writing are frequently
identical to the genocidal anti-Semitism one heard and read in Nazi Germany. This is a blight on your
civilization. How can you seriously charge that America is at war with Islam when in fact it is much of
the Islamic world that is at war with Jews and Christians?

18. "I know that you would like me to announce that America is abandoning its support for Israel. But
every president since Harry Truman, Democrat and Republican, has been passionate about enabling
Israel to defend itself from those who wish to destroy it. And that, dear Muslims, is the issue. America
will continue to support a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli dispute, but the issue has never really
been about two states. It has always been about Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims recognizing
Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
"As a friend of Egypt and of the Muslim world, I want to say something from the bottom of my heart:
The day the Arab world ceases obsessing over the existence of a Jewish state the size of Belize will be
a great day for the Arab and Muslim worlds. Your obsession with Israel has cost you dearly in every
area of social development. This is easily demonstrated. If Israel were destroyed -- and the so-called
“right of return” of millions of third-generation Palestinian refugees would ensure that outcome as
effectively as would a nuclear device from Iran -- what difference would that make to the Egyptian
economy, to Egyptian lack of freedoms, or anything else that matters to Egyptians? In my opinion,
none whatsoever. Preoccupation with Israel has simply enabled the Arab world to not look within for
60 years.
"Finally, my fellow Americans would feel more confident in American-Muslim relations if they had
ever seen a large demonstration of Muslims anywhere against all the terror committed by Muslims in
the name of Islam -- whether in London, Madrid, New York, Bali, Cairo, or Mumbai. The mark of a
great civilization -- and Arab civilization was indeed once great -- is a willingness to criticize itself.
"Thank you again for this opportunity to address you. I could have patronized you by exaggerating
American misdeeds and ignoring yours. But I have too much respect for you.
"Shukran jiddan."
President Has “More Effective” Method to Get Intel from Terrorists – What Is It?
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
In his latest address – on Guantanamo detainees – President Obama said something of extraordinary
importance that seems to have been missed by the media:
“I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I
could not disagree more…I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of
interrogation.”
As this President chooses his words carefully, these claims need to be understood.
Note that Mr. Obama did not say what nearly all opponents of water-boarding say – that water-
boarding is not an effective method of extracting reliable, life-saving, information. He took no issue
with former Vice-President Dick Cheney’s claims that water-boarding or “enhanced interrogation”
saved American and other lives. Indeed, he clearly leaves open the possibility, even the likelihood, that
this claim is accurate. Rather, what he says is that “methods like water-boarding were not necessary to

19. keep us safe” – not necessary, not ineffective. And why does he believe this? Because they are not “the
most effective means of interrogation.”
In other words, the President’s view seems to be that water-boarding the three terrorists did elicit vital,
life-saving, information. However, he contends that we could have obtained all that information using
means of interrogation that were both non-brutal and more effective.
I pray the President is right. I would love America to be able to say “America never uses brutal
methods of interrogation, let alone tortures” while simultaneously obtaining information it needs from
captured terrorists to save thousands of innocent people from death and maiming.
But if in fact, these methods exist, they have never been revealed. President Obama needs to share this
discovery with the American people, or, if they must be state secrets, with a select few individuals from
Congress and the intelligence community.
It is as if the President, or anyone else, announced that brutal methods of combating cancer like
chemotherapy and radiation were “not the most effective means” of combating cancer – and then
refused to say what non-brutal means were more effective.
This is the paramount issue in the water-boarding debate. As Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said
five years ago, it is essentially a no-brainer that we must “do what you have to do” if we apprehend a
terrorist who has the information that can prevent an imminent terrorist attack.
Most opponents of water-boarding terrorists rely on the belief that such a method is as unnecessary as it
is illegal. Therefore, if it is shown that water-boarding did in fact provide information that saved many
innocent lives, opponents have to argue one of two positions: that there was a better, non-brutal,
method available; or that it is morally preferable to have innocent Americans and others killed, brain
damaged, blinded, and paralyzed rather than water-board a single terrorist.
Given that just about all of us – proponents of rare water-boarding and opponents of all water-boarding
– want both security and not to water-board – the President can do the country and the world an
extraordinary service by revealing – if necessary, only to a select few – what those non-brutal methods
are that he knows to be “more effective.”
This would end the debate, give America more security, and enable us to say we never water-boarding
or torture.
I, for one, pray those methods exist. But I don’t believe they do or that the President has a clue what
they are.
Socialism and Secularism Suck Vitality Out of Society
Dennis Prager

20. Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Outside of politics, sports, and popular entertainment, how many living Germans, or French, or
Austrians, or even Brits can you name?
Even well-informed people who love art and literature and who follow developments in science and
medicine would be hard pressed to come up with many, more often any, names. In terms of greatness
in literature, art, music, the sciences, philosophy, and medical breakthroughs, Europe has virtually
fallen off the radar screen.
This is particularly meaningful given how different the answer would have been had you asked anyone
the same question between just 80 and 120 years ago -- and certainly before that. A plethora of world-
renowned names would have flowed.
Obvious examples would include (in alphabetical order): Brecht, Buber, Cezanne, Chekhov, Curie,
Debussy, Eiffel, Einstein, Freud, Hesse, Kafka, Mahler, Mann, Marconi, Pasteur, Porsche, Proust,
Somerset Maugham, Strauss, Stravinsky, Tolstoy, Zeppelin, Zola.
Not to mention the European immortals who lived within the century before them: Mozart, Beethoven,
Dostoevsky, Darwin, Kierkegaard, Manet, Monet, Hugo and Van Gogh, to name only a few.
What has happened?
What has happened is that Europe, with a few exceptions, has lost its creativity, intellectual excitement,
industrial innovation, and risk taking. Europe’s creative energy has been sapped. There are many lovely
Europeans; but there aren’t many creative, dynamic, or entrepreneurial ones.
The issues that preoccupy most Europeans are overwhelmingly material ones: How many hours per
week will I have to work? How much annual vacation time will I have? How many social benefits can I
preserve (or increase)? How can my country avoid fighting against anyone or for anyone?
Why has this happened?
There are two reasons: secularism and socialism (aka the welfare state).
Either one alone sucks much of the life out of society. Together they are likely to be lethal.
Even if one holds that religion is false, only a dogmatic and irrational secularist can deny that it was
religion in the Western world that provided the impetus or backdrop for nearly all the uniquely great
art, literature, economic and even scientific advances of the West. Even the irreligious were forced to
deal with religious themes -- if only in expressing rebellion against them.
Religion in the West raised all the great questions of life: Why are we here? Is there purpose to
existence? Were we deliberately made? Is there something after death? Are morals objective or only a
matter of personal preference? Do rights come from the state or from the Creator?

21. And religion gave positive responses: We are here because a benevolent God made us. There is,
therefore, ultimate purpose to life. Good and evil are real. Death is not the end. Human rights are
inherent since they come from God. And so on.
Secularism drains all this out of life. No one made us. Death is the end. We are no more significant
than any other creatures. We are all the results of mere coincidence. Make up your own meaning
(existentialism) because life has none. Good and evil are merely euphemisms for “I like” and “I
dislike.”
Thus, when religion dies in a country, creativity wanes. For example, while Christian Russia was
backward in many ways, it still gave the world Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy, and Tchaikovsky. Once
Christianity was suppressed, if not killed, in Russia, that country became a cultural wasteland (with a
few exceptions like Shostakovich and Solzhenitsyn, the latter a devout Christian). It is true that this was
largely the result of Lenin, Stalin and Communism; but even where Communism did not take over, the
decline of religion in Europe meant a decline in human creativity -- except for nihilistic and/or absurd
isms, which have greatly increased. As G. K. Chesterton noted at the end of the 19th century, when
people stop believing in God they don’t believe in nothing, they believe in anything. One not only
thinks of the violent isms: Marxism, Marxism-Leninism, Fascism, Maoism, and Nazism, but of all the
non-violent isms that have become substitute religions – e.g., feminism, environmentalism, and
socialism.
The state sucks out creativity and dynamism just as much as secularism does. Why do anything for
yourself when the state will do it for you? Why take care of others when the state will do it for you?
Why have ambition when the state is there to ensure that few or no individuals are rewarded more than
others?
America has been the center of energy and creativity in almost every area of life because it has
remained far more religious than any other industrialized Western democracy and because it has
rejected the welfare state social model.
Which is why so many are so worried about President Barack Obama and the Democratic Party’s
desire to transform -- in their apt wording -- America into a secular welfare state. The greatest engine
of moral, religious, economic, scientific, and industrial dynamism is being starved of its fuel. The
bigger the state, the smaller its people.
Question to Left: If You love America, Why “Transform” It?
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
If you met a man who said he would like to “transform” or “remake” his wife, would you conclude that
he: a) thought very highly of his wife and loved her? Or b) held his wife in rather low esteem and
therefore found living her rather difficult?
The answer is obvious: Those who wish to remake anything (or anyone) do not think highly of the
person or thing they wish to remake.

22. Little is as revealing of Barack Obama’s and the Left’s view of America than their use of the words
“transform” and “remake” when applied to what they most want to do to America.
I among others pointed this out during the presidential campaign when Barack Obama frequently
promised he would “transform America.” That is why those of us attuned to the importance of words
and who hold America in high esteem were so worried about an Obama election.
Americans on the Left frequently attack critics for labeling them “unpatriotic” and/or accusing them of
not loving America. The first charge is false is to the best of my knowledge. I have searched in vain for
an instance of a normative conservative or Republican spokesman calling Democrats or liberals
“unpatriotic.”
The second, however, is a more complex question.
It is not an attack on the left to say that their own rhetoric suggests that they love a vision of America
considerably more than they love the reality of America; that they love what America could be rather
than what it is. Otherwise, how to explain this liberal vocabulary of “remaking” and “transforming”
America. You don’t yearn to transform or remake that which you love.
Many years ago, the prominent Jewish writer, my friend since childhood, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin,
helped to clarify – in a non-partisan way – a major difference between liberals and conservatives.
“Conservatives,” he said, “romanticize the past; liberals romanticize the future.”
The romanticizing of the future has been a distinguishing characteristic of the Left since Karl Marx.
Leftist ideologies have secular eschatologies. The further left one goes the greater the belief in
revolution, the need to overthrow the contemporary order. That is why Marx so hated religion – he and
Engels saw it as the “opiate of the masses” because religion, in their view, taught people how to deal
with their (abject) condition rather than to become revolutionaries. But one day -- one great day – “all
men will be brothers” in the stirring words of the revolutionary song that ends Beethoven’s Ninth
Symphony.
The problem is that compared with such a future utopia, no actual society could possibly compete.
Certainly not racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, unequal America.
In light of those frequently made criticisms of America, I have often asked representatives of the Left
why they criticize America so much if they love it so much. “Precisely because we love America, we
criticize it. You criticize that which you love,” is the nearly universal response.
But, of course, it isn’t true. If you constantly criticize your spouse, for example, it is difficult to
imagine that you really do love him or her. And perhaps more important, it is very unlikely that your
spouse feels loved. That is why after being routinely described as racist, sexist, imperialist, etc., it is
difficult to be able to tell that America is loved by the Left.
This is not written in order to indict the Left, let alone the President, for not loving America. No one
can measure an other’s feelings. Furthermore I do not question the sincerity of anyone who says he
loves America. What I question are the actions and rhetoric of those who claim to love America yet
want to transform and remake it.

23. Nine Questions the Left Needs to Answer About Torture
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Any human being with a functioning conscience or a decent heart loathes torture. Its exercise has been
a blight on humanity. With this in mind, those who oppose what the Bush administration did to some
terror suspects may be justified. But in order to ascertain whether they are, they need to respond to
some questions:
1. Given how much you rightly hate torture, why did you oppose the removal of Saddam Hussein,
whose prisons engaged in far more hideous tortures, on thousands of times more people, than America
did -- all of whom, moreover, were individuals and families who either did nothing or simply opposed
tyranny? One assumes, furthermore, that all those Iraqi innocents Saddam had put into shredding
machines or whose tongues were cut out and other hideous tortures would have begged to be
waterboarded.
2. Are all forms of painful pressure equally morally objectionable? In other words, are you willing to
acknowledge that there are gradations of torture as, for example, there are gradations of burns, with a
third-degree burn considerably more injurious and painful than a first-degree burn? Or is all painful
treatment to be considered torture? Just as you, correctly, ask proponents of waterboarding where they
draw their line, you, too, must explain where you draw your line.
3. Is any maltreatment of anyone at any time -- even a high-level terrorist with knowledge that would
likely save innocents’ lives -- wrong? If there is no question about the identity of a terror suspect , and
he can provide information on al-Qaida -- for the sake of clarity, let us imagine that Osama Bin Laden
himself were captured -- could America do any form of enhanced interrogation involving pain and/or
deprivation to him that you would consider moral and therefore support?
4. If lawyers will be prosecuted for giving legal advice to an administration that you consider immoral
and illegal, do you concede that this might inhibit lawyers in the future from giving unpopular but
sincerely argued advice to the government in any sensitive area? They will, after all, know that if the
next administration disapproves of their work, they will be vilified by the media and prosecuted by the
government.
5. Presumably you would acknowledge that the release of the classified reports on the handling of high-
level, post-Sept. 11 terror suspects would inflame passions in many parts of the Muslim world. If
innocents were murdered because nonviolent cartoons of Muhammad were published in a Danish
newspaper, presumably far more innocents will be tortured and murdered with the release of these
reports and photos. Do you accept any moral responsibility for any ensuing violence against American
and other civilians?
6. Many members of the intelligence community now feel betrayed and believe that the intelligence
community will be weakened in their ability to fight the most vicious organized groups in the world. As
reported in the Washington Post, former intelligence officer “(Mark) Lowenthal said that fear has
paralyzed agents on the ground. Apparently, many of those in the know are certain that life-saving
information was gleaned from high level terror suspects who were waterboarded. As Mike Scheuer,
former head of the CIA unit in charge of tracking Osama bin Laden, said, ”We were very certain that

24. the interrogation procedures procured information that was worth having.” If, then, the intelligence
community has been adversely affected, do you believe it can still do the work necessary to protect
tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of people from death and maiming?
7. Will you seek to prosecute members of Congress such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,
who were made aware of the waterboarding of high-level suspects and voiced no objections?
8. Would you agree to releasing the photos of the treatment of Islamic terrorists only if accompanied by
photos of what their terror has done to thousands of innocent people around the world? Would you
agree to photos -- or at least photo re-enactments -- of, let us say, Iraqi children whose faces were torn
off with piano wire by Islamists in Iraq? If not, why not? Isn’t context of some significance here?
9. You say that America’s treatment of terror suspects will cause terrorists to treat their captives,
especially Americans, more cruelly. On what grounds do you assert this? Did America’s far more
moral treatment of Japanese prisoners than Japan’s treatment of American prisoners in World War II
have any impact on how the Japanese treated American and other prisoners of war? Do you think that
evil people care how morally pure America is?
If you fail to address these questions, it would appear that you care less about morality and torture than
about vengeance against the Bush administration.
The More Given, the Less Earned
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
One of the reasons for the ascendance of the English-speaking world has been that the English
language is almost alone among major languages in having the word “earn.”
Those of us whose native language is English assume that the phrase “to earn a living” is universal. It
isn’t. It is almost unique to English. Few languages have the ability to say this.
In the Romance languages, for example – a list that includes such major languages as Spanish, French,
and Italian -- the word used when saying someone “earns” money, is “ganar” in Spanish, “gagner” in
French. The word literally means “to win.” In Hebrew the word “marveach” means “profits.” In
German, the word “verdient” means “deserves.”
Obviously, it is very different to “win” or to “deserve” or to “profit” than to “earn.”
Since the 1960s-‘70s, a concerted effort has been made to weed the word, and therefore the cultural
value, of “earning” from American life. Increasingly little is earned. Instead of earning, we are
increasingly owed, or we have more rights, or we are simply given.

25. Many American kids no longer earn awards or trophies for athletic success. They are given trophies
and awards for showing up. These trophies are not earned, just granted -- essentially for breathing.
Another increasingly widespread concept that undermines the notion of earning is “unconditional
love.” The term, which was barely used prior to the 1960s, is now ubiquitous. It is a prominent goal, a
human ideal to strive for. The idea of having to earn love is more than unheard of today; it would strike
most moderns as morally suspect.
We expect unconditional love not only from parents to babies and toddlers, but to children of any age,
no matter how they act. Parental unconditional love means that all people, no matter how disgracefully
they act --- even toward a parent -- and no matter how old they are, must be shown infinite love from
their parents. Parental love is never to be earned, always to be given.
We expect God to show unconditional love to all people, again no matter how they act. According to
the doctrine of divine unconditional love, God loves sadists as much as He loves the kindest
individuals. No one earns God’s love; we receive it, like sports trophies, for breathing. Many fine
people believe this about God, but I think it is religio-cultural-specific, and non-biblical. In 15 years of
study in a yeshiva I had never heard the phrase, and it would have struck me, as it still does, as quite
odd. It depicts God as a love machine who, like an air-conditioner that emits the same amount of cold
air no matter how the inhabitants of a house act, emits the same amount of love no matter we act. It
means that we in no way influence God’s love for us. I don’t find that comforting. And it is certainly no
more likely to induce decent behavior in human beings than a God who does show conditional love
based on human decency.
We expect unconditional love -- meaning unearned love -- from spouses. No matter how awfully you
treat your wife or husband, as soon as you were married, you were owed unconditional love. While
your spouse and you had to earn each other’s love prior to marriage, the moment you got married, you
no longer had to earn the other’s love.
We also expect forgiveness to be given without being earned. Many people believe in what I call
automatic forgiveness -- the obligation to forgive anyone any crime, committed against anyone, no
matter how many victims and no matter how removed from my life. Thus the pastor of a church
attended by then-President Bill Clinton told the president and all others at a Sunday service that all
Christians were obligated to forgive Timothy McVeigh, the terrorist murderer of 168 people. Did
McVeigh earn this forgiveness? Of course not. So where did the notion of unearned forgiveness come
from, especially unearned forgiveness from people who were not the victims of the evil being forgiven?
It is one thing for me to forgive those who have hurt me; it is quite another for others to forgive those
who have hurt me. God Himself demands that we earn forgiveness. The term for that is repentance. No
repentance, no forgiveness.
Finally, the increasingly powerful culture of entitlement and rights further undermines the value of
earning anything. The more the state gives to its citizens, the less they have to earn. That is the basic
concept of the welfare state -- you receive almost everything you need without having to earn any of it.
About half of Americans now pay no federal income tax -- but they receive all government benefits just
as if they had paid for, i.e., earned, them.
America became a great civilization thanks to a culture based on the value of having to earn almost
everything an American got in life. As it abandons this value, it will become a mediocre civilization.

26. And eventually it will not be America. It will be a large Sweden, and just as influential as the smaller
one.
Time for Congressional Black Caucus to Disband?
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Last week, seven members of the Congressional Black Caucus – Reps. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., Melvin
Watt, D-N.C., Michael Honda, D-Calif., Laura Richardson,, D-Calif., Bobby Rush, D-Ill., Marcia
Fudge, D-Ohio, and Emanuel Cleaver II, D-Mo. -- returned from a visit to Cuba where they met with
the dictators of Cuba, Fidel and Raul Castro.
They were quite impressed with Fidel Castro, the longest reigning dictator in the world, the man who
deprived an entire generation of Cubans of the most fundamental human rights. Some of their
reactions:
CBC Chairwoman Rep. Barbara Lee: “Former President Fidel Castro is very engaging, very energetic.”
Rep. Laura Richardson: “He looked right into my eyes and said, 'How can we help you? How can we
help President Obama?’”
Rep. Bobby Rush: “I think that what really surprised me, but also endeared me to him was his keen
sense of humor, his sense of history and his basic human qualities.”
“He drank water, we drank water, nothing else was served, but that was just fine! I was, after all, in the
presence of history.”
“In my household, I told Castro, he is known as the ultimate survivor.”
Regarding this last comment, columnist Mona Charen pithily noted: “Funny how easy it is to survive
when you don't hold elections.”
Charen is a conservative, but when even major liberal editorial pages hold you in contempt, you're in
trouble.
The Miami Herald labeled the seven members of the CBC who went to Cuba, “The Clueless Seven”
The Herald’s scathing editorial continued: “If only the group had met with even one prisoner of
conscience or one of the wives, mothers, daughters or sisters of the 75 independent journalists,
librarians and human-rights advocates imprisoned in Cuba's ‘Black Spring’ of 2003. … Or the seven
could have traveled three hours from Havana to see the hunger-striking dissidents led by Jorge Luis
Garcia ‘Antunez’ Perez in Placetas. Or they could have asked to see Oscar Elias Biscet, a doctor

27. serving 25 years in prison for following the peaceful resistance of Martin Luther King Jr. … Or what of
the mothers of three young men who were tried in a day and killed the next by firing squad in 2003 for
trying to hijack a ferry from Havana Harbor? No passenger was hurt, but that didn't stop the Cuban
government from sending a swift and terrifying message to the country's Afro-Cuban masses.”
And as the Washington Post, another major liberal newspaper, editorialized: (Rep. Barbara Lee said
that) “‘Cubans do want dialogue. They do want talks.’ Funny, then, that in five days on the island the
Congress members found no time for dialogue with Afro-Cuban dissident Jorge Luis Garcia Perez. …
Mr. Garcia, better known as ‘Antunez,’ is a renowned advocate of human rights who has often been
singled out for harsh treatment because of his color. ‘The authorities in my country,’ he has said, ‘have
never tolerated that a black person (could dare to) oppose the regime.’ His wife, Iris, is a founder of the
Rosa Parks Women's Civil Rights Movement, named after an American hero whom Afro-Cubans try to
emulate. The couple have been on a hunger strike since Feb. 17, to demand justice for an imprisoned
family member.”
Apparently, it is black Americans that the CBC cares about, not black Cubans. And the CBC calls itself
“the conscience of the Congress since 1971”!
Before the CBC further embarrasses the civil rights movement, black America, the Democratic Party,
and the United States of America, it should consider disbanding.
There was never a good reason for any members of Congress to create a group whose sole criterion for
membership was race (or ethnicity in the case of the Congessional Hispanic Caucus). The CBC is so
color-based that even congressmen representing majority-black districts who are not themselves black
(such as Rep. Stephen Cohen, D-Tenn.), who applied for membership) are not allowed to be members.
Such a group, if it existed anywhere else in America, would properly be declared racist and would be
either legally or morally forced to shut down.
But this trip to a communist dictatorship where they ignored the oppression of black and other Cubans
and served as useful fools for a tyranny ought to be the last straw.
America Has a Naive President
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
“The basic bargain is sound: countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament, countries
without nuclear weapons will not acquire them.” -- President Barack Obama, Prague, April 6, 2009
As far as nuclear weapons are concerned, the President of the United States wants America to disarm:
“Countries with nuclear weapons will move toward disarmament.”

28. It is hard to imagine a more destructive goal. A nuclear disarmed America would lead to massive and
widespread killing, more genocide, and very possibly the nuclear holocaust worldwide nuclear
disarmament is meant to prevent.
There is nothing moral, let alone realistic, about this goal.
Here is an analogy. Imagine that the mayor of a large American city announced that it was his goal to
have all the citizens of his city disarm -- what could be more beautiful than a city with no weapons?
This would, of course, ultimately include the police, but with properly signed agreements, vigorously
enforced, and violators of the agreement punished, it would remain an ideal to pursue.
One has to assume that most people would regard this idea as, at the very least, useless. There would be
no way to ensure that bad people would disarm; and if the police disarmed, only bad people would
have weapons.
The analogy is virtually precise -- but only if you acknowledge that America is the world’s policeman.
To idealists of the left, however, the notion of America as the world’s policeman is both arrogant and
misguided. A strengthened “world community” -- as embodied by the United Nations – should be the
world’s policeman.
To the rest of us, however, the idea of the United Nations as the world’s policeman is absurd and
frightening. The United Nations has proven itself a moral wasteland that gives genocidal tyrannies
honored positions on human rights commissions. The weaker the U.N. and the stronger America, the
greater the chances of preventing or stopping mass atrocities.
On the assumption that the left and the right both seek a world without genocide and tyranny, it is, then,
the answer to this question that divides them: Are genocide and tyranny more or less likely if America
is the strongest country on earth, i.e., the country with the greatest and most weapons, nuclear and
otherwise?
Moreover even if you answer in the negative and think that the world would experience less evil with a
nuclear disarmed America, the goal of worldwide nuclear disarmament is foolish because it is
unattainable. And unattainable goals are a waste of precious time and resources.
For one thing, it is inconceivable that every nation would agree to it. Why would India give up its
nuclear weapons? There aren’t a dozen Hindus who believe that Pakistan would give up every one of
its nuclear weapons. And the same presumably holds true for Muslims in Pakistan with regard to India
disarming.
And what about Israel? Would that country destroy all its nuclear weapons? Of course not. And it
would be foolish to do so. Israel is surrounded by countries that wish not merely to vanquish it, but to
destroy it. It regards nuclear weapons as life assurance. And it regards the United Nations (with good
reason) as its enemy, not its protector.
As for states like Iran and North Korea, they have already violated agreements regarding nuclear
weapons. What would prompt them to do otherwise in a world where America got weaker? United
Nations sanctions? And why would Russia and China even agree to them?

29. Finally, there would be no way to prevent rogue scientists from selling materials and know-how to
terrorists.
The result of this left-wing fantasy of worldwide nuclear disarmament would simply be that those who
illegally acquired or made but one nuclear weapon would be able to blackmail any nation.
What any president of the United States should aspire to is: 1). to keep America the strongest country
in the world militarily (as well as economically, but that is not the question on the table); 2) to destroy
those individuals and organizations that seek nuclear weapons so as to kill as many innocent people as
possible; and 3) remain the world’s policeman. These aims cannot be achieved if America aims to
disarm.
President Obama said “I am not naïve” in his talk. That, unfortunately, is as accurate as his statement
before the joint session of Congress that “I do not believe in bigger government.”
New Broadway Play About Hero Who Is … Religious!
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
The older I get, the less I find evil interesting and the more I find goodness interesting. Contrary to
conventional wisdom, it is great goodness, not great evil, that needs to be explained. In fact, given the
ubiquity of gratuitous cruelty and other expressions of evil -- and the apparent ease with which many
ordinary people can be transformed into monsters -- evil may be more explicable than goodness.
Given all this, one would therefore assume that there would be many studies of goodness and of good
people. Yet, there are probably 100 books, studies, and articles about evil for every book, study, or
article about goodness. This emanates in large measure from the modern, i.e., post-religious, belief
(“faith” would be a better word) that people are born good. Consequently, it is evil that is deemed
aberrant and therefore needs to be explained, not good, which is deemed normal and therefore needs
little explanation.
Just as studies of goodness are deemed less interesting than studies of evil, portrayals of goodness are
deemed less interesting than portrayals of evil. Again, the ratio is probably at least a 100-to-1.
Yet, true stories of goodness, well told, are the greatest stories. While stories of evil have the benefit of
sensationalism and appeal to voyeurism, stories of goodness uplift, inspire, make us cry, give us hope,
provide real models to emulate, and ultimately may even make us a little better.
One problem, however, is that it is much easier to depict evil in a riveting manner than to so depict
goodness. Stephen Spielberg achieved the latter in Schindler’s List, but that was the exception that

30. proves the rule. Now, however, another exception has come along. Playwright Dan Gordon and
director Michael Parva have made goodness riveting in the new Broadway play, “Irena’s Vow.”
The Irena of the title is Irene Gut Opdyke, who, at the time of the play’s World War II’s setting, was a
pretty 19-year-old blond Polish Roman Catholic to whom fate (she would say God) gave the
opportunity to save 12 Jews in, of all places, the home of the highest-ranking German officer in a
Polish city. Ultimately discovered by the Nazi officer, she was offered the choice of becoming the
elderly Nazi’s mistress or the Jews all being sent to death camps.
As it happens, I interviewed Opdyke on my radio show 20 years ago and again 12 years later, and she
revealed to me how conflicted she was about what she consented to do not only because she became
what fellow Poles derided as a “Nazi whore” but because as a deeply religious Catholic she was sure
she was committing a grave sin by regularly sleeping with a man to whom she was not married and
worse, indeed a married man, which likely rendered her sin of adultery a mortal sin.
What she did therefore, was not only heroic because she had to overcome daily fear of being caught
and put to death, but because she also had to overcome a daily fear of committing a mortal sin before
God.
Aside from my lifelong interest in altruism and especially in understanding the motivations of rescuers
of Jews during the Holocaust, I had an unwitting role in the making of “Irena’s Vow.” According to the
playwright, Gordon, the play came about because he heard Opdyke on my radio show 20 years ago. He
immediately contacted her, they became friends, and the rest is history.
We never know all the good (or bad) we have done. So Gordon’s attribution of the genesis of his play
to me is very gratifying. If there was a dry eye on opening night this past Sunday when I attended, it
surely wasn’t near my seat.
It is rare to see a play on Broadway that is preoccupied with goodness. It is even more rare to see
Broadway play extol the goodness of a religious person. When was the last Broadway show about a
Christian hero? In this upside-down age that is hypersensitive to any criticism, no matter how fair, of
any aspect of Islam but which regularly depicts many American Christians as buffoons and quasi-
fascists, one can only hope that this play has a long run. Likewise, in an age when art increasingly
celebrates the ugly and the bad, one can only hope that a million young people see a play that
celebrates the goodness that God-based morality can produce.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Why Doesn't Communism Have as Bad a Name as Nazism?
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, March 24, 2009

31. Why is it that when people want to describe particularly evil individuals or regimes, they use the terms
"Nazi" or "Fascist" but almost never "Communist?"
Given the amount the human suffering Communists have caused - 70 million killed in China, 20-30
million in the former Soviet Union, and almost one-third of all Cambodians; the decimation of Tibetan
and Chinese culture; totalitarian enslavement of North Koreans, Chinese, Vietnamese, and Russians; a
generation deprived of human rights in Cuba; and much more -- why is "Communist" so much less a
term of revulsion than "Nazi?"
There are Mao Restaurants in major cities in the Western world. Can one imagine Hitler Restaurants?
Che Guevara T-shirts are ubiquitous, yet there are no Heinrich Himmler T-shirts.
This question is of vital significance. First, without moral clarity, humanity has little chance of
avoiding a dark future. Second, the reasons for this moral imbalance tell us a great deal about ourselves
today.
Here, then, are seven reasons.
1. Communists murdered their own people; the Nazis murdered others. Under Mao about 70 million
people died - nearly all in peacetime! - virtually all of them Chinese. Likewise, the approximately 30
million people that Stalin had killed were nearly all Russians, and those who were not Russian,
Ukrainians for example, were members of other Soviet nationalities.
The Nazis, on the other hand, killed very few fellow Germans. Their victims were Jews, Slavs and
members of other "non-Aryan" and "inferior" groups.
"World opinion" - that vapid amoral concept - deems the murder of members of one's group far less
noteworthy than the murder of outsiders. That is one reason why blacks killing millions of fellow
blacks in the Congo right now elicits no attention from "world opinion." But if an Israeli soldier is
charged with having killed a Gaza woman and two children, it makes the front page of world
newspapers.
2. Communism is based on lovely sounding theories; Nazism is based on heinous sounding theories.
Intellectuals, among whom are the people who write history, are seduced by words -- so much so that
deeds are deemed considerably less significant. Communism's words are far more intellectually and
morally appealing than the moronic and vile racism of Nazism. The monstrous evils of communists
have not been focused on nearly as much as the monstrous deeds of the Nazis. The former have been
regularly dismissed as perversions of a beautiful doctrine (though Christians who committed evil in the
name of Christianity are never regarded by these same people as having perverted a beautiful doctrine),
whereas Nazi atrocities have been perceived (correctly) as the logical and inevitable results of Nazi
ideology.
This seduction by words while ignoring deeds has been a major factor in the ongoing appeal of the left
to intellectuals. How else explain the appeal of a Che Guevara or Fidel Castro to so many left-wing
intellectuals, other than that they care more about beautiful words than about vile deeds?
3. Germans have thoroughly exposed the evils of Nazism, have taken responsibility for them, and
attempted to atone for them. Russians have not done anything similar regarding Lenin's or Stalin's

32. horrors. Indeed, an ex-KGB man runs Russia, Lenin is still widely revered, and, in the words of
University of London Russian historian Donald Rayfield, "people still deny by assertion or implication,
Stalin's holocaust."
Nor has China in any way exposed the greatest mass murderer and enslaver of them all, Mao Zedong.
Mao remains revered in China.
Until Russia and China acknowledge the evil their states have done under communism, communism's
evils will remain less acknowledged by the world than the evils of the German state under Hitler.
4. Communism won, Nazism lost. And the winners write history.
5. Nothing matches the Holocaust. The rounding up of virtually every Jewish man, woman, child, and
baby on the European continent and sending them to die is unprecedented and unparalleled. The
communists killed far more people than the Nazis did but never matched the Holocaust in the
systemization of murder. The uniqueness of the Holocaust and the enormous attention paid to it since
then has helped ensure that Nazism has a worse name than communism.
6. There is, simply put, widespread ignorance of communist atrocities compared to those of the Nazis.
Whereas, both right and left loathe Nazism and teach its evil history, the left dominates the teaching
profession, and therefore almost no one teaches communist atrocities. As much as intellectuals on the
left may argue that they loathe Stalin or the North Korean regime, few on the left loathe communism.
As the French put it, "pas d'enemis a la gauche," which in English means "no enemies on the left." This
is certainly true of Chinese, Vietnamese, and Cuban communism. Check your local university's courses
and see how many classes are given on communist totalitarianism or mass murder compared to the
number of classes about Nazism's immoral record.
7. Finally, in the view of the left, the last "good war" America fought was World War II, the war
against German and Japanese fascism. The left does not regard America's wars against communist
regimes as good wars. The war against Vietnamese communism is regarded as immoral and the war
against Korean (and Chinese) communism is simply ignored.
Until the left and all the institutions influenced by the left acknowledge how evil communism has been,
we will continue to live in a morally confused world. Conversely, the day the left does come to grips
with communism's legacy of human destruction, it will be a very positive sign that the world's moral
compass has begun to correct itself.
Copyright © 2009 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.
Brilliance is Overrated
Dennis Prager

33. Tuesday, March 17, 2009
I have met very few parents or grandparents who have not characterized at least one of their offspring
as “extremely bright” or even “brilliant” – usually beginning at the age of 2. The emphasis on the
importance of the intellect is greater than ever.
That is why people were persuande into having their babies listen to Mozart after it was reported that
listening to Mozart -- even in utero -- would make babies smarter. As an occasional orchestra
conductor, I am delighted when anyone of any age is exposed to classical music. But love of music was
not an issue here -- the Mozart-for-babies craze was about love of brains, not love of music. Likewise,
those who can afford to do so vie with one another to have their children admitted to prestigious
preschools and elementary schools.
This preoccupation with brains and intellectual attainment extends into adulthood. Most Americans
upon hearing that someone has attended Harvard University assumes that this person is not only
smarter than most other people but is actually a more impressive person. That is why, for example,
people assume that a Nobel laureate in physics has something particularly intelligent to say about social
policy. In fact, there is no reason at all to assume that a Nobel physicist has more insight into health
care issues or capital punishment than a high school physics teacher, let alone more insight than a
moral theologian. But people, especially the highly educated, do think so. That’s why one frequently
sees ads advocating some political position signed by Nobel laureates.
Intellectuals, e.g., those with graduate degrees, have among the worst, if not the worst, records on the
great moral issues of the past century. Intellectuals such as the widely adulated French intellectual Jean
Paul Sartre were far more likely than hardhats to admire butchers of humanity like Stalin and Mao. But
this has had no impact on most people’s adulation of the intellect and intellectuals.
So, too, the current economic decline was brought about in large measure by people in the financial
sector widely regarded as “brilliant.” Of course, it turns out that many of them were either dummies,
amoral, incompetent, or all three.
The adulation of the intellect is one reason President George W. Bush was so reviled by the intellectual
class. He didn’t speak like an intellectual (even though he graduated from Yale) and for that reason was
widely dismissed as a dummy (though he is, in fact, very bright). On the other hand, Barack Obama
speaks like the college professor he was and thereby seduces the adulators of the intellect the moment
he opens his mouth. Yet, it is he, not George W. Bush, who nearly always travels with teleprompters to
deliver even the briefest remarks. And compared to George W. Bush on many important issues, his
talks are superficial -- as reading, as opposed to hearing, them easily reveals.
Take, for example, one of the most complex and compelling moral issues of our time -- embryonic
stem cell research. This is an excellent area for comparison since both presidents delivered major
addresses on the exact same subject.
Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post has compared the two speeches. He has particular
credibility on this score because he is a scientist (he has a medical degree from Harvard Medical
School), a moralist, and has special interest in stem cell’s possibilities because he is a paraplegic from a
diving accident. And, as he points out, “I am not religious. I do not believe that personhood is conferred
upon conception.”

34. Krauthammer’s verdict?
“Bush's nationally televised stem cell speech was the most morally serious address on medical ethics
ever given by an American president. It was so scrupulous in presenting the best case for both his view
and the contrary view that until the last few minutes, the listener had no idea where Bush would come
out.”
“Obama's address was morally unserious in the extreme. It was populated, as his didactic discourses
always are, with a forest of straw men.”
“Unlike Bush, who painstakingly explained the balance of ethical and scientific goods he was trying to
achieve, Obama did not even pretend to make the case why some practices are morally permissible and
others not.”
In a similar manner, I devoted two columns to analyzing Barack Obama’s widely hailed speech in
Berlin when he was a candidate for president. I found it to be both vacuous and, to use Krauthammer’s
words, “morally unserious in the extreme.”
But Obama sounds intelligent. As indeed he is.
The reason we have too few solutions to the problems that confront people -- in their personal lives as
well as in the political realm -- is almost entirely due to a lack of common sense, psychological
impediments to clear thinking, a perverse value system, to a lack of self-control, or all four. It is almost
never due to a lack of brainpower. On the contrary, the smartest and the best educated frequently make
things worse.
Some Silver Linings in Our Dark Economy
Dennis Prager
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
There are two definitions for the term “optimist”: One who believes the future is good and one who
sees the good in any given situation.
I am as little an optimist by the first definition as I am a big optimist according to the second. In the
world (as opposed to my own life), I rarely think things will turn out well because they rarely do. Evil
often triumphs; and even when defeated, the amount of human suffering it causes does not mean that
the optimists were right. Hitler was vanquished, Stalin’s regime fell, and Mao finally died. But to the
hundreds of millions of innocent people who were slaughtered, tortured, and enslaved those happy
endings were irrelevant.
As regards the second definition of optimism (please see an extended discussion of this in my book
“Happiness Is a Serious Problem”), count me in. It is imperative to find, or even manufacture, bright
spots in a dark situation.

35. So here are some silver linings in our dark economic circumstances:
-- Most people are complaining less. They are more grateful for whatever they have than they were
before. For example, just about everyone who still has a job is grateful for having it; nearly all of us
now realize how fragile employment is. Therefore, there is an increase in the most important human
quality -- gratitude. It is the root of both goodness and happiness. Grateful people are better people and
they are happier people. They make the world better while the ungrateful make it worse. So the
increase in gratitude may make our society better.
-- The adulation of extremely wealthy Wall Street “wizards” has ended. Most of those people produced
nothing of worth and believed in economic nonsense. A large number of people making millions of
dollars a year were proficient at only one thing -- making millions of dollars a year.
-- Given how many of these people were highly educated Ivy League graduates, more and more
Americans may come to realize that Harvard and Yale turn out at least as many fools (perhaps more
given their high incidence of arrogance) than San Diego State University or Long Island University.
For years I have been urging listeners to my radio show to send their children to less expensive colleges
with reputations for quality (of which this country has many) rather than mortgage their homes or raid
their retirement funds to pay for high-priced colleges that offer equal or inferior instruction but more
“prestige.” I was right. American parents have wasted vast sums of money purchasing cachet rather
than a superior education.
-- The flirtation of capitalists and moderate liberals with left-wing politics may diminish. Why
entrepreneurs who made millions would support the Democratic Party and other parts of the left when
the left’s policies make it so much more difficult for others to attain financial success has always
eluded rational explanation. Now that the society cannot afford liberal-left social policies -- indeed they
are on their way to bankrupting cities, states, and perhaps one day America -- erstwhile financial sector
and moderate liberal supporters of the Democratic Party are beginning to question leftist ideas. Some
examples:
Jim Cramer, Obama admirer and host of CNBC’s Mad Money: “President Obama's budget may be one
of the great wealth destroyers of all time.”
Warren Buffett, billionaire Obama supporter: “You can’t expect people to unite behind you if you're
trying to jam a bunch of things down their throat.”
Clive Crook, Financial Times: “Barack Obama’s first budget showed him to be more of a left-leaning
liberal than I and many others … had previously supposed.”
-- Big oil producing nations -- most of which are governed by bad people -- have been hit hard. The
primitives who run Saudi Arabia, for example, have strutted on the world’s stage as if they have
anything more to offer than a necessary commodity that by sheer good luck happens to lie under their
soil. The decline in influence of Saudi Arabia, Iran, Russia, and Venezuela is a good thing for
humanity.
-- For the foreseeable future -- i.e., until another generation grows up that has not experienced this
major economic downturn -- most Americans will return to some basic economic principals like not
buying things they cannot afford, and not incurring too much debt. That, too, is a good thing.