the best selling author, his most recent book, "still the best hope: why the world needs american values to triumph," is this about exporting american values? >> well, we have to import them. that's the problem, but, yes, it is about exporting. that's why the subtitle is about the world. people need guidance to be good people. we're not born good. this is, by the way, one of the basic differences between left and right. left wing believes we're born good. conservatives understand we're not, and it's a huge source of the differents between left and right, so if you understand, and

my preoccupation is understanding why there's so much evil in the world. i take no credit for it, but you need ideas to guide people's lives. you need, if you will, ideology, and there are three competing ideologies in the world today. islamism or islam, but i'll explain the difference in a moment, leftism, and americanism. those are the three competing ideas, two are prophettizing, one is not, americanism. i define americanism simply, not simplistically, in the book, that's why there's a copy on the cover. it occurred to me at -- in -- i don't know, about 25 years ago, emptying pockets at night, looked at the coin, and sure enough, it was amazing, there they were. the american value system on every coin, liberty, in god we

trust, e plush bis you numb. i can explain them. what i call the american trinity, they are the greatest value system dictatorships vised for liberty and goodness. >> how do you define leftism? >> well, that's the thing, as i point out, that's the largest single part of the book. it has characteristics, and it begins, for example, with the belief that the greatest. state is the greatest vehicle to goodness that we rely on the state as much as possible for the welfare of people. it begins with the belief that economics explaps human behavior, not values, so that the idea is a dogma on the left.

we, who do not subscribe to leftism but judeo-christian values, common sense, know the basic cause of crime, certainly, in our society, is a malfunctioning conscious. people don't rape because of poverty. people are not killing because of poverty. they are killing because they stink. that's why. we can't say that. it's unbelieve lment you can say madoff stinks, say everything terrible, and they should, a white collar criminal, but you can't say that the average rapest and murder is of that level. it's not really him, it's the parenting. the blaming of outside forces for human evil is a very deep part of leftism. the materialist view of life is part of secular left. i. leftism is by and far composed

of religion. marx said obstacle is religion. try to be happy in the rlo that exists, and leftism says maybe utopia here, religion says ewe utopia is in the next life. those are part of the characteristics, and they are all developed in the book. >> dennis, the diddest for the next hour. if you want to call in, talk with him, numbers on the screen, 202-5 # 85-3885. 585-3886. mountains or here in the pacific time zone where we are located today, if you can't get through, but want to tweet us @booktv is the handle or facebook.com/booktv. you'll sigh right there, you can post a comment under his name. it's listed right there on the top of the page.

>> the most obvious is racial minorities. if they rape, if they kill, it is because of racism and poverty during the riot, i was a talk show host then as well, and i said, i'll never forget, and there's a black gentleman throwing stones at drivers, and the man throwing stones 1 not a gentleman. the word i can't use on national television, but the word that comes to mind is not

"gentleman," why did he say "gentleman," there's a white yes mapp wearing a hood burning a cross. do you say that? of course not. the left of center doesn't have the courage and doesn't have the ideology that permits it to blame evil on evil doers. if the evil doer is black, it's white's fault. if the evil doer is whiting it's white's fault. you name it. the palestinian-israeli conflict is another example. don't blame the palestinians. after all, what they are doing is understandable in light of how evil israel is. by the way, that's a very significant example of the upside down moral world of the left that israel is now increasingly the villain. there's not been a war between a free and unfree society, neverrings it's either two unfree societies, first time in

world history that i know that the free society is blamed for a conflict. that's thanks to the left. israel is the villain, not the palestinians who, half of whom vote for a genocide ideology to prevail. the leftism is an upside down moral world. i say this with sadness because a lot of methamphetamine who subscribe to it are decent people, which incidentally, is unique to us. we are constantly understanding there's good people with whom we differ. i have never heard a prominent leftist say conservatives are good people. people who believe that same-sex marriage is wrong and that we should continue to keep the male-female marriage, they are not doing this from hate. they have sip sere beliefs in this regard. they can't say that because if we're not demonized, then we can't be fought. we are fought by demonization, what i could sexist, intoller

sigh, racist, and big gotted. that's how they prvail. we're not battling ideas. we're battling bad people. we think they are wrong. they they we are bad. for example, university of san diego, and you list organizations that the university has. >> yeah, you want to read it. it's awesome. this is from heather mcdonald at the manhattan institute. go ahead. >> the diverse exclusion, the chance lore's diversity office, the associate vice chancellor for faculty equity, and the assistant vice chancellor by diversity, faculty ceo witty advisers, the staff diversity liaison, undergarage rat

liaison, diversity, chief diversity officer, director of development for diversity initiatives, office of equal opportunity, the committee on gender identity and sexual orientation issues. the committee on the status of women. the campus council on climate, culture, and inclusion, the diversity council, the cross-cultural center, the lesbian, bi, sexual, transgender resource center, and the women's center. that is a left wing seminary, not a university. >> that's right, that's right. >> should not these institutions exist? >> not one of them. they have nothing to do with thieving, but ideology. look, this is another tragedy. i was raised in a religious jew, wrote two books on judaism,

journalist, and we -- the hebrew root for torah, teacher, and parent is the same. that's how holy the teaching role is in my tradition. the left has sullied the word "teacher," and i never thought it possible. it's like the purist word you have. what the teachers' unions have done to teaching in the public schools and what they -- what the left has done, and i call them left wing seminaries, they are there to reduce committed christians, the universities produces committed leftists, and they succeed. that's the reason for election results, biggest reason for shift in american values, and you don't hear these ideas at an american campus, not here at usc, i'm not picking on usc, but

it doesn't matter where we'd be. there are fine teachers in every university, no question, but overwhelmingly, it is an indoctrination. bill mar, a man of the left, just had a guy from the e.u -- you see a san bernardino that if there was a show mocking islam like it mocks mormonism, do you think they would have put it op and would have been violence results? the professor says, oh, no, no, would have been the same, muslims per elect okay with that. this is what you're taught at the campus, you're taught lies. yale university is so scared of islamists that they refuse that the last movement in the that own book in the cartoons in

denmark to publish the cartoons, in a book on the cartoons, they would not publish cartoons. on a book on nazi an hi tf semitism, would they have reproduced car toons about the jews? okay. no jew is killing anybody for appty semitism, and no christian is killing anybody for antichristianity. there's a piss christ thing of a crucifix in the quote-on-quote artist's urine. can you imagine a picture of muhammed of him in urine? people would have died. that is what is taught here and every university virtually in america. >> dennis, where can people hear the radio show? >> national, go to my website, dennis prager.com, and i'm trying to undo the damage of the university called prager

jiewfort.com. i ask people for five minutes, prageruniversity.com, trying to do what god gives he to live with the health and energy i have to undo damage being done by leftism and that the sad part is, and i know this because my extended family is mostly liberal, and i love them, and so i always think of them whenever i attack leftism. am i attacking my dear extended family? not the immediate family. thank god my boys are conservative, but i love them, and i know they are good. , but all you study is from the left. it is a brainwash. if all you studied was evangelical christianity from childhood to graduate school, wouldn't the liberals say you

were rainwashed? why suspect it true, then, if you get secular leftism from elementary school, through graduate school. do you know that here in california, textbooks are now, by law, must include the contributions of the transgendered? by law. you will have to have pages on transgender contributions. people who were crossed over sex or dressedded in the other sex clotting. i thought the purpose of a book was to tell the truth, not make groups feel good, but as i point out in the book, it is overwhelmingly rooted in feeling. >> still the best hope, the name of the most recent best seller. this is booktv on c-span2, and l louis from florida, you're on the air, talking with dennis

prager. hi. >> caller: i'd like to ask mr. prager what he just said about truth, why should people believe the bible when that's the biggest novel ever written? who believes the earth is 5,000 years old? how can you follow a book that tells you the book, the world, the earth is 5,000 years old, and is last commentary about going to christian schools into the seminary, they are child molesters there. how does he say something like that, and he wants to be harnessed. he's a right winger and wouldn't give credit to anybody, but the main question is why does he so hung up on religion when religion is just a false pretense? answer me -- >> host: we got the point. let's get a response. >> okay. first of all, i don't know anybody, and i am rather deeply involved in both the jewish and christian worlds who believe the

earth is 5,000 years old. there are people who did. i don't frankly give a hoot. i think it's it's 13.7 billion years old. whatever science tells me and proves, i believe. it's a nonissue to me. i don't read the bible for geology. i read the bible for moral guidance as well as every founder of the country including jefferson. jefferson removed the miracles, but jeffersonmented -- you know what he wanted the seal of the united states to be? we have it. look it up on the interpret. jefferson and franklin called deists,mented, designedded a seal, the seal of the united states was to be the jews leaving egypt. that's how steeped in the bible jefferson was, not to mention adams and washington and so on. that's where we got the idea that we get our rights from a creator that comes from that book. it's not from dna or darwin,

values don't come from secularism, and it doesn't have a value system. it is the absence of religion, but the christian value system give us our values. if god doesn't say, "do not murder," murder is not wrong. this drives people crazy, and i debated this at oxford and elsewhere, and, by the way, the leading atheist philosophers all agreed if there's no god, the wrongness of murder is solely a matter of personal opinion. i like yellow. you like blue. i like murder. you don't like murder. that's the way it is. only if there is a god who says do not murder is murder wrorng. i'm fearful for the united states dropping the bible in favor of, you know what? feelings. i don't trust the human heart very much. >> in the section of the book, the moral record of islam, alla

alone runs the world, reason, nature, have no say, you write, and that is probably the primary reason why after a certain date science ceased to most likely, could not develop in the muslim world. >> right. i backed that up. we talked about leftism the whole time, but the book is about islamism, and let me explain islamism. there's islam, and there's islamism. islamism is the belief that the sharia should govern a society. that's what i'm worried aboutment i'm not worried about the moderate -- it's o a not issue to me. i am worried about the muslim who wants a society like the islamists in egypt and elsewhere, not to mention the taliban governing the society. yes, there is a terrible battle, 4 # 00 footnotes in the book. there was a terrible battle during the early middle ages within islam.

do things happen because they happen, or solely because god wills it? the alla wills it, as it were, prevailed, so if an arrow hits the target, it's not because of wind velocity or the ability of the archer, but solely because alla willed it. reason and, obviously, science, ultimately ultimately became rather rare in the major part of the us lamic world. >> dennis, one posts on facebook page for you, the left is for the state to play a fair arbiter and equalizer role once achieved as marx proposes, the state fades away. in your view, however, corporate religion and corm darwinism should be the rule to suppress masses and benefit the few.

>> the state fading away, if the the -- i'm familiar with that. everything marx predicted did not come true. this is one of them. the state does not fade away, but always gets bigger. i don't know where it's getting smaller on earth or ever got smaller it gets smaller only if conservatives prevail, as the great british prime minister or the late great president laggen. in willfully it is made small, that is the way the american ideal, this person, obviously, god bless him, doesn't agree with the american ideal of small government, but i have a motto, and it is a true itch. the bigger the government, the smaller the citizen. as the government get bigger, you and i get smaller, at z government gets smaller, we are bigger. we take care of our neighbor, take care of ourselves, and

family. in europe, goverent is everything. the biggest concern of host europeans is can i work fewer hours and how many trips can i take because it's a human right in europe to travel. we have had -- why did we have -- why do americans give more charity than europeans? why? are we born better? of course not. we give far more charity than europeans because the european is taught you don't have to take care of anyone. the state will do it. why are leftists proud of that? what is beautiful about that? i can be a narcissist because the state will take care of my neighbor. that's what happens. it's like colorado just had its huge demonstration on behalf of legal marijuana. wow. if my child had gone to a let's celebrate legalized marijuana, i would have believed i had failed as a parent utterly. the narcissism involvedded there, that's what preoccupies

you? you're now a free to get high on marijuana? i mean, just think about what animates a lot of people, and it's just -- it's painful, frankly. this -- and social darwinism? this is what the left uses to attack the belief -- i don't know what belief they are attacking. what about social darwinism that the talented and the harder working get ahead? why is that darwinism? why suspect that merit? i have in there from a -- i believe a harvard economist, our princeton, actually, man won a nobel prize, as it happens, means nothing to me, but it does to a lot of others, and he shows how much more television a poorer people watch than richer people because richer people don't have the time to watch tv. they work so hard to get ahead. this does not mean that poor people don't work hard, but on

average, in america, by and large, there's a correlation between hours worked and income. by and large. of course there are exceptions at both ends. >> booktv on the campus of the university of southern california at the l.a. times festival of books, and matthews in oregon, thank you for holding, you are op. >> caller: oh, good morning. how are you doing? pleasure to talk with you. >> good, thank you. >> caller: yeah, the original question, you said so much. i appreciate your comments. you're making a comment earlier in the interview about how the left sees the utopia on earth, and that religion is more about utopia in the after life. i would say that i'm a big fan of u.s. history, and revolutionary europe, is that the founding of this country and the special values that we have

all being created equal, and all those special new things very new to the world, that was the way of, not necessarily making utopia, but, you know, along those lines. it was not just sitting back and accepting what was, but trying to make it better. >> right. that's good, thank you very much. of course, look, my whole point of the writing the book is that we have the best system for making a better society. a better society is not utopia. the president of the united states five days before he was legislated said to a large crowd, in five days, in the first election, in five days we'll transform the united states of america. i don't want to fundamentally transform america. utopians want to fundamentally transform america. i want to improve america, not fundamentally transform it. that's the utopian streak that

is at the heart of leftism. we can make a world where there is no suffering, no evil, of course, it's a beautiful goal, but to have it as a reality? what -- what everyone who is has tried to make a utopia, my listener, my viewer, everyone, everyone who has tried to make utopia op earth made hell on earth. those who want to incrementally inimprove it make it a better place. >> from the twitter page, one asks, why are liberals so vested in boston bombers being home grown white terrorists? >> well, there was, in fact, an article on one of the liberal welcomeses where the author, a man i actually debated once, so i'm familiar with him, said he hopes that it is a white american, home grown american. it -- can you imagine had

somebody written an article, i hope it's a black or i hope it's a middle easterner? can you imagine the condemnation that -- the tsunami of contempt he would have received? look, that map and others don't want to recognize there really is a moral problem. islam today, to say that means you're a hater. see, we can't say truths. if you're against affirmative actionings you're a racist. if you think the human fetus has rights as much as a dog, you're a sexist. if you think marriage is defined between a man and a woman, you're a homophob. if i say there's a bigger moral problem in the world today in

world of islam, than you're islamaphob. therefore, no debate is necessary of the that's the reason they do it because as i found, and i have had on my radio show most the biggest leftest names other than new york times columnists, they don't go on conservative shows. they don't. they go op npr, but not on us, conservative talk show hosts. i don't blame him. i don't blame him. we will treat him perfectly decently, and that is being known for this. that's why they come on. i had the great university of chicago professor, one of the leading names on the left, and she was delighted to be on, and we don't agree on anything, but i -- my motto on my show is i prefer clarity to agreement, so if i clarify where i differ with the left or whomever, good.

back to this. to merely say that there is more of immoral problems today in the islamic world than in the christian, judeist, or hindu is to be called name. people are afraid of being called names. i'm not. it shuts up a lot of people. >> kathy in west, illinois, go ahead with question or comment for dennis. >> caller: mr. prager, i have a question. one of the questions for you is, can you name any society that you're aware of that doesn't suffer from deep levels of poverty that's not crime ridden? >> kathy, can you quickly explain what you mean by that question? >> well, can i name a society that is crime ridden that does not suffer from deep poverty? the point being that there is only crime where there's poverty, is that -- first of all, every society has

poverty, and i would turn the question around, were the impoverished ancestors of every living american criminals? my grandparents had less money in absolute and relative terms than the average poor person today. ..

>> guest: divorce after 17 years was a terribly painful thing. terribly. and you build hopes, you have dreams, and they -- you have a child, and it's all very painful. i am very open on my radio show, as i am here. people know about my life. but i don't think there is a close second to that. i had every dream a picket fence -- not necessarily dogs but my wife wanted dogs. eye currently married to the love of my life, and she loves dogs. i like dogs, for the record, don't love them. >> host: next call from dennis in st. louis, missouri. >> guest: dennis is over 50. are you over 50? >> i sure am. over 70. >> guest: you know why? there are no young denniss.

>> host: good ahead. >> caller: i'm also jewish, and i have an interest in your work for a long time. not because i agree with you but because i enjoy disagreeing with you. maybe you have already answered this. from a jewish perspective, how do you explain why so many jews seem to support a much larger role for the state than you too, -- you do, and why so many. >> host: s are more critical of israel than you are? and i don't mean supporting the palestinian cause. then a comment -- i'm also a retired teacher, and i thought you inflated the power of teaching -- not the power of teacher unions over bread and butter issues, but i thought you inflated the influence of teacher unions of what is actually taught to students. frankly, i think -- >> guest: no. not at all. >> okay.

>> host: dennis? very quickly. we'll get mr. prager to respond. do you listen to his radio -- >> caller: a read a few of the books and articles and have occasionally gone to c-span to pick up other programs. i use your web site a lot to listen to interviews. >> host: all right, thank you, sir. >> guest: all right. well, thank you for that. why are jus on the left is a very complex question, and i could devote the hour it to but i won't. near a nutshell, when jews left judaism they said religious but the religion they affirmed tended to be any form of leftism rather than judaism. this is not a condemnation. this is not an insult. it's a christmas. jews have been taught by judaism to make a better world. that is the message of the prophets. and if they weren't going to do it through month othism, teach

the world that god is the sort of ethics and demands ethical behavior, they did it through secular ideas. they accepted a new religiousity. many -- here's a disturbing statistic, at it in my book. a professor at brandeis university came up with this. the most pro-communist press in the 1930s, outside of the soviet union, or inside the united states, was the yiddish press. jews took a new religion as a substitute for judaism, and that was, you name it, feminism, environmentalism, marxism, socialism. and for some, even communism. but jews love. is jews are toisms what it tallans for opera.

they create new moms and every one will make this great world, and instead of using the religion that came with being jewish, and it's a very sad development to me. >> host: still the best hope. published by harper collins. nancy, in georgia, go ahead. >> caller: hi everybody and thanks for being here. hello, mr. prager. this is the first time unfortunately i have ever heard you name. >> guest: where do you live? >> caller: south of atlanta in georgia. >> guest: i'm not in atlanta every day for the years. >> i shall have to check you out. i'm a christian whose mentor is my radical red print guy and those are the words i go by. i am neither left oright. i find both are cast in stone and tends to be shades of one party which are corporate owned. jesus said we're all one, and win that i am often troubled by the talking heads of both

sides -- pardon the phrase, depressant mean that as a pejorative -- where they don't do anything to reach out one to the other. i find that our biggest problem is reaching across laterally, and it seems that the talking folks of both sides tend to help -- >> guest: what do you mean by reaching out? what does it mean? agreeing with the other? dialoguing? i know on my show, i have the leading spokesman, whenever possible, from the left. is that reaching out? if so, i'm innocent of your charge. >> caller: actually wasn't a charge. it's simply an observation, and as i mentioned at the beginning, have never heard you and i will seek you out. >> guest: that quite all right. i'm not -- i'm an example. >> caller: i have heard other folks, and what i find is a lot of talk that separates us, and i'm talking now about the

everyday people, which is what i am, and i find that rather than when we talk laterally, i hear a lot of talking points from both sides instead of, i am 69, and so i have been around jesus for a long time, and i know dish really believe he didn't stutter, and i never hear his words put out in terms of reaching -- coming together and trying to resolve our differences because we are diverse. it's in our differences that are constantly reinforced that create the problem. the other question i have, if i may, i consider myself a christian of neither party but i suppose many on the right would call me more to the left because of -- we are all one, and i'm wondering why the christian leftes often ignored and are they not viable? and my final question is, do you really believe -- because i lived in ireland, my father was irish, rest his soul. do you really believe that the rest of the world do not have

comparable values? i wish you blessings. thank you very much. >> guest: thank you. i wish you blessings. that's correct, don't think the rest of the world has comparable values. that's exactly right. if i thought so not only would i have not written the book, i would have abandoned the belief that there is better and worse in the universe. you believe jesus has better values. flrn who doesn't believe that what they believe in has a better value system? if my value system isn't better than every other -- then i will adopt the one that is better. don't want -- i have one life to live on this earth and i want to live it with the best values i can find. if it's not the american value system,'ll take the leftist or islamic or whatever it might be. but this system of liberty and god we trust has devised the most ironically egalitarian society in that there's -- in that there's such fluidity between the classes or among the classes.

and it has given more people more prosperity, given more people nor liberty, more opportunity, than any society in the history of the world. you jump an ideology by its fruit. i like the american fruit. it has given people blessings. it gave two brothers blessings, who decided to then murder the people who blessed them. a little sick. but, yes, of course i believe ours is a better value system. just as you believe jesus is a better value system. and by the way, the people who lived e believed in jesus founded this country, but they understood that it wasn't jesus alone that was necessary; that you needed small government and you needed from many, one, the statement that race and nationality don't matter. >> host: talked about lateral reaching out. >> guest: the reaching out -- there's the reaching out between republicans and democrats.

look, 'that is a tactical question. but on the larger question of the society, what is reaching out mean? we consecutive talk show -- conservative talk show hosts have leftists on routinely. not just myself. my colleagues have leftists on regularly. they never have us on. never. msnbc is virtually devoid of any of the ideas you just heard. npr is virtually devoid. pbs is virtually devoid of it. so, -- not to mention the universities. we, are very happy to debate. i have offered -- i would love to see a debate between paul cordman and the head of the cato institute, for example. i think we should try to raise $100,000 for cancer research.

that pull klugman debate a prominent conservative economist so so as not to make an egg go, two or three of each side. but they don't debate. they call us names. i of you believe major should be between a man and a woman, then you are called a hater. so, who wants to debate haters? i wouldn't debate the klu klux klan. that's how the left feels. if you are not on the left, you're a hater. you are sexist,en tolerant, racist and bigoted. howard dean, candidate for u.s. president, said that republicans that good to bed at night not caring about the welfare of children. this is typical of how we are perceived. and that is what sustains leftism, because right -- the right must be so awful i better be on the left because i have a good heart. >> host: where did you grow up?

brooklyn new york. my father, who is still with us, is 94, and will be on my radio show on his birthday, as he has been every year for years. was until very recently a certified public accountant. i'm one of his clients and he is very good, and his rate was great. i must say that, too. aside from everything else. ment -- and my mother, during her hay day, she ran a 300 bed nursing home. so, she passed away three years ago. >> host: were they conservatives? >> guest: that is a very interesting question. i was raised -- brooklyn. >> columbia university, give me a break. you're democrat. come ofs on your birth secretary. dirk certificate. i voted for jimmy carter first

term. but in values i think ultimately the values i got at home were conservative. but the -- but we were democrats. it was a given. but what got me -- this is what got me. because fighting evil is the single biggest passion of my life, and i knew that communism was as genocidal ass no -- as nazi. i. i didn't understand how the left could condemn anticommunism and they did. they didn't defend communism, but they did condemn anticommunism. that is what turned me away. i if you can't say that communism is the greatest evil of our post-nazi era, then your moral compass is broken, and indeed the leftist moral compass is broken. >> host: your parents make a

cameo in "still the best hope" when you talk about the section, why the left succeeds. talking about second-handmoke. >> guest: you really read it carefully. that's correct. look, i have a list of 12 hysterias of the left. hysteria is a left wing ideology, from heterosexual aids in america, which was a fraud. there was no demic of heterosexual aides in america. the number of girls dying of anorexia wasment exaggerated by a factor of a thousand. the number of homeless in america was a phony number. mitch snyder admitted it on abc tv. then i think later excited -- committed suicide, and the number of hysterias and i think second hand smoke is an example.

>> host: the next call is bob from california. >> where to start here? it's hard for me to know where to pick up on any of your statements. for instance, your generalizations are rather all-encompassing. look at the statement, the jews adopted communism as their new religion. >> guest: no. i said lefty. i said leftism. and -- i said leftism, and i said the yiddish press was the most procommon just press in america in the 18930s. i'm very careful we my language. i never said they were pro communist. >> caller: that was a different statement. those are two separate statements that you made at different times. you definitely said the jews look at communism as the new

religion. >> guest: sir, sir, i'm sorry. i don't know what the routine is here, i let people who differ with me have all the time they want on my show, and this is not my show. but you can't say what is not true and then pass over it. said, when jews abandoned judaism, they stayed unless their -- stayed religious in their desire to improve the world and picked a bunch of otherrisms, marxism, and i said a few communism. that's what said, sir, it's on top. >> host: bob go ahead and finish you're statement. >> caller: there's no question about the fact he was talking about communism and insaid of saying some jews, it was jews. the -- the statement you made about the reporters saying, gentleman, threw stones. he was no gentleman. that's pretty much nitpicking.

i was a journalist in chicago, and back in the '50s, when we covered a lot of race riots, when blacks were moving into neighborhoods and the people who were rioting were not -- were mostly the people i thought were right-wingers. so, most of these statements that you make are so general and -- in their makeup. i was -- >> host: all right, bob, let's get a response. dennis prager. >> guest: okay. there's nothing to respond to. he didn't say anything i said was wrong. thank you for calling. >> host: joe, posts on our facebook page: how problematic is the modern culture that revels in cynicism, profanity and consumerism to the project of american renewal. >> guest: there's a -- there was consumerism, there was cynicism, and what was the other?

>> host: profanity. >> guest: i don't have this belief that consumerism is this great evil that people say. every year i defend people who buy a christmas gift, for example. i think it's one of the most beautiful traditions in america that people spend time thinking about what will make a relative or friend happy on christmas. if people think that's a disgusting part of the culture, we have a different value system. is christmas made two consumerist? i just asked people -- every good thing can be taken to an extreme. so, of course, you could have too much vitamin c, too much water. ' but in general, i think that it's a credit to christianity that there is a holiday where millions of people, where the bulk of society, thinks about buying people things that will bring them joy. so i don't buy the consumerist -- the consumerism

keeps people employed. it enables people to have a job. to bring food to their family. cynicism, i think we are raising a jaded -- i would use jaded more than cynical -- i think there's a lot of jadedness among young people because they're sexualized so early. it's a tragedy and a discussion for a whole other time. why that is happening. kids who have early sex tend to be jaded and that's a problem. and the third was, again, cynicism -- >> host: profanity. >> guest: i have a chapper to on profanity. with the death of the judeo-christian value system, the concept of the holy and the division between holy and profane is obliterated, and a lot of folks on the subalready left curse publicly, and i actually document it where

cursing -- now, everybody -- most people, including myself, will use a curse word in private. i don't do it a lot but i do it. but public, that's a different thing. it's like public nudity. san francisco had a 7-6 vote outlawing public nudity, but a lot of san franciscans don't see anything wrong with it. secularism has affect. the notion we're created in god's image and shouldn't have our genitals exposed like an animal is a religious idea. with the death of religion, nobody sees wrong with people walking around naked. >> host: dennis prager, your book has been sitting on the table, and a lot of crowd here. people have been walking by saying, is dennis prager going to be on? yes, good, is dennis prager going to be on? yes. >> guest: right. >> host: real 50-50. well, everybody has an opinion. >> guest: at the l.a. book fair at usc, if it's 50 5, i'm doing

very well. i must say. so i'm very happy to hear it if it really was 50-50. look, i care about everything or nearly everything that folks on the left say they care about. compassion, goodness, concern for others. but i think leftism hurts those causes. so, i'm a bigger problem to them than the guy who just shouts at them. and i come from within that world. i understand it, and i think that it's intellectually and morally unsound, and because i'm not a yeller or screamer or hater or any of that, that's why people on the left, who do come on, feel so comfortable coming on. i gave you one example recently. one of the biggest of the

leftist historyanses came on my show, and i asked him point blank. i said, professor, would the world had been better that there never been the united states of mare? and she said he is agnostic on the issue. i wonder how many people who assign his book -- the most widely assigned single most widely assigned history book in the united states by teachers. i wonder how many would agree with that? maybe the world really would have been better had there never been a u.s. >> host: the internet, that's how he tweets. the enter northwest tweets in, this guy wants big government to outlaw marijuana. >> guest: yes, that's right. i do. i'm not an an narkist. this is correct. this idea that if you're for small government, you're for no government any bought. yes there are things i would like to see to continue to be --

i don't want any new ban, but had marijuana been legal for the last 50 years, i would have said nothing. but to introduce it as a new innovation, it will only have a -- a woman wrote to me from wyoming. she wrote a thoughtful letter. she loves my show and she has marijuana every night. she smokes marijuana every night. and she has two kids, a husband, you know, she's -- she has all these wonderful values, and i believe her. i wrote her back this. i said, you know, i smoke a cigar and a pipe. i have since high school. and i have smoked in front of my children from birth. and they're very healthy, incidentally. they don't appear to be dying of second-hand smoke anymore i am from my parents' second hand smoke. said, i'm curious, would you

smoke your marijuana in frontoff your -- front of your children like i smoke my cigar? i didn't get a response. i'm not saying she doesn't have one but i can't give you her response. everyone knows there's a difference between marijuana and tobacco, or even -- my father had his scotch on the rocks every night. but i would have been a different person if my father had a joint every night. >> host: final comment from viewer. jillian asks, do you ever regret not running for office? >> guest: yes. >> host: will you ever run for office? >> guest: i don't think so. but i -- look, i live in california so it renders running for office as a republican a form of kamikaze activity. but the other is, i'm torn -- two quick things i want to say. one is, i don't want power. i want influence. i want to touch people's hearts

and mind. poll particularses have -- pull -- poll particulars have power. a writer influences people. the other is i don't have the money to run. thanks to campaign finances reform, essentiallile only the very wealthy can run. that's one of the ironies of campaign finances reform. but yes, i debate whether i should have often. >> host: dennis prager, his most recent book, best several, "still the best hopement: why the world kneeses mesh vallates triumph."

>> two infamous prisons in the western u.s. one is the yuma territorial prison, and the other one is alcatraz. there's something in our culture in our consciousness, of what would it have been like to be in a prison like this? the yuma territorial prison was considered to be a model and humane institution in its day. and this was the solitary confinement cell. any major infraction, talking back to a guard, not giving your respect to the authorities, it was really -- if they can't deal with you, the dark cells could

deal with you. of all the treatment, this was the place you didn't want to come. because you did not have a latrine. you got bread and water once a day. occasionally there would be more than one person in here. and one great big prison breakout, there were 12 people in here. folk -- lore that said a mean guard would, in the pitch black, feel something coming down the air shaft and it could have been a scorpion or a snake. now, that is just something that is not documented. >> from 1876 to 1909, thetime ya territorial prison was home to more than 3,000 prisoners, including 29 women. next weekend, follow booktv and american history tv for a look at the history and literary life of yuma, arizona.

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