 You know May 40 here, so I got back from my Passover shopping about an hour ago And I thought for the first time in memory. I wonder what Dennis Prager has to say about X so the X in this case was the indictment that I wondered what what does Prager have to say about the indictment and So I tuned in I was wondering what would mr. Prager have to say and The kind of embodied for me why I've stopped listening to Dennis Prager I think it's back in 2015 that I stopped subscribing to Prager Topia. So let me play some of his Friday show. That's much 31 Okay a dark day in American history, so Let's think about other dark days in American history 9-11 dark day in American history Almost 3,000 Americans were murdered We invaded Afghanistan in the fall of 2001 Seems like a wasted effort. That strikes me as possibly a dark day in American history we invaded Iraq in March of 2003 and Tens of thousands of Americans were injured and what approximately 10,000 Americans died and Close to a million Iraqis died as a result of that Invasion so that strikes me as a dark day at December 11th when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor strikes me as a dark day in American history, so I Am skeptical of the Legitimacy of this indictment against Donald Trump, right? We haven't had the opportunity to read the indictment yet So maybe they have all sorts of information that we don't know about but right now Listening to people like Alan Dershowitz. It seems like a very slender read on which to prosecute Donald Trump Now there's a lot of discussion This is terrible. We're a banana Republic because we've indicted a former president I don't see that all right if the evidence is there That this is a crime then he should be treated like any other citizen so Now generally speaking this Manhattan DA he doesn't prosecute felonies except as misdemeanors when people are doing violence Here he seems to be prosecuting a misdemeanor As as a felonies so I am skeptical of the power of this indictment I'm skeptical that it will stand up But we haven't read the indictment. So we have to reserve judgment. I just don't see calling this a Dark day in American history. Where are the January 6th charges for Donald Trump? You mean? The reason that we don't have charges against Donald Trump at January 6th is that there's really no basis All right, all politicians say we have to fight for our country, right? That doesn't mean to commit crimes So saying that we have to fight for our country I don't think that's a strong enough basis for indicting Donald Trump now. He did whip up hysteria by Contesting the results of the 2020 election and he didn't have a factual empirical basis to do so And by saying that the election was rigged He then removed any moral safeguards from people who Approach the issue that same way if you believe the election was rigged then Then there's nothing that you can't do or moral Retribution or moral standards like all moral constraints are removed once you say that the election was rigged So the chat says send send Trump to the slammer. I'll enjoy seeing his mug shot Where are the January 6th charges? We need charges. He incited a mob to storm the center of the US government He should be in solitary not his supporters. So I don't think you can make that case legally. I can understand the case morally still Other people who storm the capital on January 6th, they're not responsible for their behavior so I Don't think that they were just automatons who are simply programmed by Donald Trump They were responsible for their behavior And so if a politician says we have to fight to take back this country and then you go out and commit crimes I put the onus for those crimes on you not the politician who tells you we have to fight And not even on the politician who says the election was rigged So Trump bears some responsibility for January 6th. I'd give him I don't know anywhere between 10 to 30 to 40 percent responsibility for the January 6th riots, but you can't Prosecute on the basis of moral responsibility. You can only prosecute on the basis of you know, clearly breaking the law I don't think that you can make a strong legal case in that direction, but This is why I don't listen much to Dennis Prager anymore evolve this rapidly and this dramatically and this clearly As many of you know my field of study at graduate school was communism I was Russian in order to understand what was going on in the Soviet Union Okay, so he's saying we're going down the path of the Soviet Union, which just strikes me as It had hyperbolic. I really don't think we're going down the path of the Election was rigged up the steel much in the direction of the Capitol to stop the certification Yeah, but still that's I don't think that's a crime. He didn't say storm the Capitol and Overrun the house and string up Mike Pence Okay, so saying the election was rigged is wrong. It's factually wrong morally wrong Stop the steel factually and morally wrong, but neither of those are illegal much to the Capitol to stop the certification Alright, I still don't think you can make a legal case. You can make a moral case that that was wrong What you did look for? Dennis Prager If you think I am wise at the Dennis Prager, then you would trace it to the year 1998 when I read the bell curve. So since I read the bell curve I believe it was in something like January or February of 98. Maybe it's the fall of 1997 I merely recognized it was just obviously talking Basic common sense that this is obviously true and anyone who would deny these obvious truths It's not terribly interested in truth. They're more interested in other things such as their career So if you think that I am wiser than Dennis Prager, then you'd have to Date it to when I started that when I read the bell curve and I posted online Yeah, this is obviously true anyone who denies these these basic facts about human nature is just denying the truth for for whatever reason usually is for reasons of Their career or for their comfort The 1998 was the year that Luke Kraft was was born. So in 1998 as I was doing it reporting on the porn industry primarily at the time there was this string of HIV infections and I was stunned how The mainstream media didn't have much interest in putting together the story of month after month There was HIV infection and I managed to trace it back to one actor Mark Wallace who'd had unprotected anal sex with You know all these girls about a dozen or so who tested HIV positive And he'd had unprotected anal sex with them a few weeks before they tested positive. So I Was thinking in 1998 my god There are just so many obvious stories out there just for the easy picking like, you know This string of HIV infections the the basics of the bell curve how important that is for economic analysis social cultural analysis Racial analysis crime analysis these just basic facts of life It just struck me as basic common sense that completely accorded with not just my life experience, but everything I've read So anyone who had denied the bell curve like Dennis Prager does Just struck me as someone who is not primarily interested in truth Luke in a previous dream. You said TND was an anti-social manifestation of the distant right But what do you think is the ideal number of banters? What is TND? What does that that's Dan for so Tell me that I'll ask you to read probably every day I did not study Russian in order to converse or to read Dostoevsky. I specifically wanted to read Pravda and I studied Russian history the Russian Revolution Stalin Khrushchev Brezhnev I studied that very avidly. I would say at this moment you do not have to have knowledge of the Russian Revolution and The takeover of the Soviet Union originally Russia By communists in order to understand communism you have to understand what is going on at this time in the United States of America and Canada for good measure and To a certain degree in other Western countries you are living the textbook that I studied or the textbooks that I studied You have no idea how all of this has come as a surprise to me if you'd have told me in graduate school Okay, there's just no Commonality between the rise of the communists to power in the Soviet Union what's going on in the United States in 2023 Total and word death, okay, so yeah, if you would say If you would you know post the n-word in this time of place It would strike me generally speaking is something anti-social meaning you go out of your way to be provocative and nasty In your biography didn't prego hire a lawyer to go after you yeah I was quoting two lengthy excerpts from some of his essays and yeah, I still I still appreciate Some of what Dennis Prager has to say, but he is he's not a doctor So what what is the ideal number of bantus? Well, I think generally speaking The more you have in common with your fellow citizens the better Race is one form of common identity, but also Practices rituals outlooks on on life family formation so race religion Common commitments. All right rituals ways of speaking language. All right the more you have in common the better Am I okay with total Amalekite death? Okay, great question. So The Torah says that you must wipe out Amalekite Amalek and So this has been used flexibly throughout Jewish history to Append to your enemies such as the Nazis or at times the Palestinians So some Jews have used this to just depend to their enemies So I think in certain times and places when you're in a life-and-death struggle with an enemy then appending You know the enemy must die makes sense and is adaptive and useful Most times it's not adaptive. So I was born May 28 1966 So I think I'm a little older than baby boomer So I've never really paid much attention to the generations that doesn't strike me as a particularly powerful Technique for understanding the world It doesn't like unlock life that the way that say just understanding basic facts about IQ really helps you to better understand life So I think that makes me Gen F Gen Gen X Nope, I don't believe I am a boomer. I think the baby boom wasn't 1965 the last year for baby boomers That I am studying the American future not just the Russian past or the Hungarian or Polish or East German So yeah studying the American future is when you study the Soviet past. I Mean everything in human history you can fight between two events You can find some things in common, but I don't think that understanding Russia in 1915 1916 1719 18 and then the development of the Soviet Union really gives you that many insights into America today, so I've read Stephen Cochran's mammoth to two volume series Biography on Joseph Stalin. I yeah I don't see a lot of parallels with modern America check Bulgarian or Romanian. I Would have thought you're out of your mind And I would have been wrong The negative no you would have been right, but it just feels like you're responding to the incentives of the medium that you're in so I've been listening Dennis Prager since 1988 and then I became such a Dennis Prager Acolyte that I also ordered the tapes of his radio shows going back to his debut. I think in 1983 So I've largely listened to pretty much everything Dennis Prager said on the radio between about 1983 and 2015 now starting about 1989 I realized that I had an excessive interest in Dennis Prager But I thought that's okay. I'm going to use it to write about him one day. So There are only so many topics that you can specialize in a lifetime and so approximately 1989 I realized hey I'm going to specialize in Dennis Prager. I'm going to write about him. He's an interesting man I can place him in a particular context. Yeah I was an atheist that argued with Dennis Prager in 1988 when I arrived at UCLA and then listening to Dennis Prager and reading His book on Judaism brought me to a back to a theistic perspective on life so from about 1989 onward I thought okay I'm I'm working on a project. I'm not just you know listening to him for my personal benefit I'm I'm going to specialize in Dennis Prager And so I've got approximately a 200 page biography of Dennis Prager on my website look forward net and I put a link to it in the the video description Because he he's an interesting bloke and it helps you know reveal the the world that we live in and so I'd noticed like almost all successful Political talk radio host Dennis Prager excels at infuriating people and I noticed that even though I largely agreed with Dennis Prager from about 1989 onwards I would notice once he became nationally syndicated and Was was on the radio every day? Notice that I would usually be less happy at the end of listening to him than prior So Dennis Prager wrote a book on happiness. He gives lectures on happiness He has a weekly happiness hour on his radio show But he depends upon making his audience unhappy to keep his job with his job gives him money prestige Influence Right there are a lot of reasons why you'd want to be a nationally syndicated radio host He's age 74, but I don't notice From from the little I've listened to him of late But I don't notice any decline in his powers from 64 even 54 But he's working in a medium that depends upon keeping people unhappy to keep your job Right a show that gives people a nuanced understanding of current events from both sides of the aisle Apparently, there's no business model for this in talk radio or TV punditry The last big one I think was Michael Jackson on KBC radio in Los Angeles in 1980s into the early 1990s so my my overview reaction to politics is that both Right-wing tendencies and left-wing tendencies are evolved evolutionary tendencies that people have adopted over thousands of years and that's in some circumstances the left-wing tendencies such as towards more egalitarianism towards more openness to strangers to a decreased reaction to possible threats More innovation in how we organize communities and families in some circumstances that's going to be Adaptive and in other circumstances the right-wing approach of more suspicion of strangers now a higher Reaction to possible threats Higher level of disgust All right at you know things that are gross all right so people on the right they tend to have a much higher discussed reaction Than people on the left so in some circumstances that's going to be a more adaptive approach and I just assumed that I am Genetically programmed to be right-wing Okay, so that's my my basic big picture overview on Politics if I try to get you know to the ten thousand foot level that the both sides are going to be adaptive in different circumstances so for example an American election that is fought primarily on an issue of say national security that Republicans will have an edge Presidential election that is fought primarily on the basis of social welfare spending then Democrats are going to have an edge So you can think of people on the right largely embracing a father type morality and Bracing a motherhood nurturing type morality I doubt it down August 26 2014 Dennis Prager saying in his second hour of his radio show you didn't hear the first hour I really got angry this story out of a month It's a good reason for you to hear all three hours and the best way is through pre getopia calm The taking down of the bacon ad in Vermont and then the dishonesty in addressing it We are in trouble not because of the woman who made the request, but because they honor the request So this is a month restaurant fried by bacon ad backlash So when new ski restaurant decision take down a bacon Become the center of an online backlash Apparently a woman who was a vegan and a member of a Muslim household for the sign offensive Given the large number of Muslim families in this community as well as many others who do not eat pork for a variety of reasons It seems unnecessary for this insensitive business sign to be at the city's main crosswalk so How much do you need to you know bend to the People around you all right so if you live in a largely Muslim community It would make sense that there would be a backlash against having some big sign Proclaiming bacon, so that doesn't mean legally you should be forced to take down the sign But there will there will be consequences if you If you put up a sign that offends large segments of the people around you or particularly if they are highly engaged Also, if you have a highly vegan community around you all right They're going to be negative consequences, so I don't see this as necessary to be getting really angry over right An individual or a business has the strength to defy Community or defy you know an engaged number of the numbers of the community good for them, but I Just don't see this as a reason to get so here is the playbook for talk radio This comes from 2008 Dan Shelley former news director and assistant program director at Milwaukee's WTM radio Talk show hosts are popular and powerful because they feel segment of the population that feels disenfranchised even victimized by the media these people Leave the media predominantly staffed by inconsistently reflective use of social liberals that is true This view is now is by now so long and deeply held and deeply rooted is evolved into part of virtually every conservatives DNA True and for good reason to succeed a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his or her listeners are victims So it's so funny the right wing blasts the victim hood mentality, but they tend to blast it on nationally syndicated talk shows and TV shows that are popular because they are perpetuating and deepening the notion that You are the victim and when you tell people that you are the victim you are Increasing their unhappiness levels and making them less effective at life, right? You're disabling people so the right wing tries to perpetuate the notion that Their listeners their people are victims perhaps even as much as the left way and so to succeed Here's the key to succeed a talk show host must perpetuate the notion that his listeners are victims and The host is the vehicle by which they can become empowered, right? That is the formula for talk radio and for partisan cable TV Punditry as well the host frames virtually every issue in us versus them this is how The mic sounds bad, so let me fix that The destructive consequences of the inviting of a former president over trivia Meaning that the purpose is not justice the purpose is indictment the purpose is conviction the purpose is humiliation The purpose is to express the contempt that the left has for everyone who voted for Donald Trump That is the intent There is no there the justice is being used or not justice the Department of Justice is being used It is not Justice that is being sought. There was a difference in as any of you understand of course between using officials in the justice world and seeking justice They may have nothing in common and indeed in this case they do not and in most cases they do not with regard to January 6 They do not That's why what was it how many hours of video were hidden from the American people and from the defendants Is it 40,000 hours? Why would they hidden? Because the left has never been interested in justice or truth or in fact anything good It is interested in destroying that which preceded them and then taking power These are bad people Alvin Bragg is a bad human being George Soros is a bad human being There are many bad human beings. There are some good human beings and there are the rest of humanity So it is a battle between the many bad and the few good because to be good you have to be courageous and Courage is rarer than evil Always there is no exception in history the forces of evil outnumbered the forces of good Then arises a time when more people join the forces of good as happened in World War two against the Nazis and For that matter the Japanese fascists But in America today it is a few good people a lot of bad people and the rest of the American people I