Dennis Prager from Creators Syndicate

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

The Muslim world is threatened by religious fanaticism. The Western world is threatened by secular fanaticism.

Both seek to dominate society and to use state power to do so. Both seek to eliminate the Other — for Islamic fanatics, that means non-Muslim religions and secularism; for secular fanatics, it means Christianity and virtually any public invoking of God. The Islamists impos ...

Updated: Tue Jan 31, 2012

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Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

As an American, a Republican, and a fiscal and social conservative — and though I have endorsed no Republican candidate — there is one thing that would disturb me greatly if Mitt Romney were not the Republican nominee: if Romney's Mormon faith were a factor in his defeat.

Many evangelical leaders have said that if Romney is the Republican presidential candidate, they would no ...

Updated: Tue Jan 24, 2012

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Tue, 17 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

In the Republican presidential candidates' debate on Jan. 7, Congressman Ron Paul said: "I'm the only one up here ... that understands true racism in this country is in the judicial system."

He said this racism has to do with "enforcing the drug laws" and then added: "They (blacks) get the death penalty way disproportionately."

Two groups immediately ...

Updated: Tue Jan 17, 2012

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Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:00:00 -0800

Only a fool believes that all those with whom he differs are bad people. Moreover, just about all of us live the reality — often within our own family — of knowing good and loving people with whom we strongly differ on political, religious, social and economic issues.

That said, I have come to believe that the more committed one is to leftism, the more likely one is to become ...

Updated: Tue Jan 10, 2012

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Tue, 20 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

After a lifetime of studying the left, I have concluded that leftism is a form of moral poison. It causes otherwise decent and kind people who take it into their systems to say and/or do cruel and sometimes evil things.

While not specifically about the left, a major new scholarly book, "Pathological Altruism" (Oxford University Press), explores this phenomenon of people wanting ...

Updated: Tue Dec 20, 2011

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Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Because the issue is so important, I have decided to respond to critics of my last column on adultery, politics and character.

As any reader of my columns or books knows, I am a religious conservative, and my primary concern is morality. By morality, I mean issues of good and evil. I am also concerned with the issue of sin, but sin and evil are not identical. All evil is sin, but not all ...

Updated: Tue Dec 13, 2011

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Tue, 06 Dec 2011 00:00:00 -0800

With Herman Cain's announcement that he was suspending his presidential campaign because of the charges of sexual harassment and of a 13-year affair, issues are raised that the country would do well to think through. The two most obvious are whether we should care about a politician's sexual life and how much the press should report about these matters.

But there is a larger issue that n ...

Updated: Tue Dec 06, 2011

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Tue, 29 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

The governor of Oregon, John Kitzhaber, announced last week that he would not allow any more executions in his state during his time in office.

Kitzhaber, a Democrat, gave five reasons for his decision. My response follows each one.

1. "I refuse to be part of this compromised and inequitable system any longer."

This has become one of the most frequently offered re ...

Updated: Tue Nov 29, 2011

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Tue, 15 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

I periodically write and regularly broadcast about male-female issues because I want to help men and women, especially husbands and wives, get along better. But I have developed a secondary reason: to elicit left-wing reactions. They reveal an enormous amount about how the left thinks.

For example, one of the biggest left-wing websites (Daily Kos) wrote that "Dennis Prager advocates ...

Updated: Tue Nov 15, 2011

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Tue, 08 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0800

Commentary Magazine asked 41 Americans to respond to this question: "Are you optimistic or pessimistic about America's future?" The responses, including my own, appear in the current issue of Commentary. As we were limited to 500 words, I offer my response here, in edited and longer form.

I am both optimistic and pessimistic regarding America's future.

Here are my reason ...

Updated: Tue Nov 08, 2011

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Tue, 01 Nov 2011 00:00:00 -0700

As we approach the 50th anniversary of the publication of Betty Friedan's feminist magnum opus, "The Feminine Mystique," we can have a perspective on feminism that was largely unavailable heretofore.

And that perspective doesn't make feminism look good. Yes, women have more opportunities to achieve career success; they are now members of most Jewish and Christian clergy; women' ...

Updated: Tue Nov 01, 2011

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Tue, 25 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Last week, The New York Times published an opinion piece by Karl W. Giberson and Randall J. Stephens, a physics professor and history professor at Eastern Nazarene College, respectively. The authors take evangelicals to task for being anti-intellectual, anti-reason and anti-science. Their evidence:

— Evangelicals doubt man-made global warming,

— Evangelicals believe th ...

Updated: Tue Oct 25, 2011

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Tue, 18 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

The major difference between Hitler and the Communist genocidal murderers — Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot — was what groups they chose for extermination.

For Hitler, first Jews and ultimately Slavs and other "non-Aryans" were declared the enemy and unworthy of life. For the Communists, the rich — the bourgeoisie, land owners, and capitalists — were labeled the ...

Updated: Tue Oct 18, 2011

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Tue, 11 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

On a daily basis, I sit in awe at the amount of nonsense that pervades the world's media. The latest is the preoccupation with the ethnicity of Steve Jobs' birth father.

Steve Jobs was adopted at birth. And until his untimely death last week, as far as almost anyone in the world knew, Steve Jobs was the son of Mr. and Mrs. Jobs — father Paul and mother Clara.

In fact, as far ...

Updated: Tue Oct 11, 2011

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Tue, 04 Oct 2011 00:00:00 -0700

This week, for the fourth consecutive year, I am conducting Jewish High Holiday services. Though not a rabbi, I spent 12 years studying in yeshivas and 35 years teaching and writing on Judaism. The following is a summary of the Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) sermon that I gave this past Wednesday night.

The purpose of the High Holidays (Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur) is moral introspecti ...

Updated: Tue Oct 04, 2011

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Tue, 27 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

About five years ago, I was invited by the Hoover Institution to lecture at Stanford University over the course of a week. Coincidentally, Israel's Independence Day fell during that week, so I was invited to speak at the celebration held by pro-Israel students. In my talk, I noted that the crux of the problem in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict was that most Palestinians wanted Israel to cease ...

Updated: Tue Sep 27, 2011

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Tue, 20 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Last week, David Brooks of The New York Times wrote a column on an academic study concerning the nearly complete lack of a moral vocabulary among most American young people. Below are some excerpts from Brooks' summary of the study of Americans aged 18 to 23. (It was led by "the eminent Notre Dame sociologist Christian Smith.")

"Smith and company asked about the young peop ...

Updated: Tue Sep 20, 2011

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Tue, 13 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

In attempting to understand 9/11, the first question asked by the world's elites — as exemplified by leading media and academics — was, "What did America do to provoke such hatred?"

Ten years later, the same people are still asking the same question. And it is as morally repulsive now as it was then. It was always on par with "What did the Jews do to antagonize ...

Updated: Tue Sep 13, 2011

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Tue, 06 Sep 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Imagine a Jewish Congress member accusing the members of the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) of wanting to see Jews gassed. How would any decent American — on the right or left — describe such a statement? Loathsome? Morally reprehensible? An obvious lie?

All three descriptions would be entirely accurate.

Next question: How much media exposure would that slander be gi ...

Updated: Tue Sep 06, 2011

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Tue, 30 Aug 2011 00:00:00 -0700

Next month, the UN-sponsored hate-Israel festival known as Durban III takes place. Under the heading "anti-racism," the great bulk of the conference, like Durban I and Durban II, consists of condemning Israel for racism and equating it to an apartheid state.

Of the world's many great lies, this is among the greatest.

How do we know it is a lie? Because when South Africa ...

Updated: Tue Aug 30, 2011

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