Dennis Prager, host of the show "The View From The Top," joins us to discuss the death of hobbies and the rise of a new one: stamps. Dennis talks about his love of stamps, and why he thinks they should be legalized.
00:03:04.000Remember the old milk caps they used to have underneath milk, and every now and then they would have pictures?
00:03:08.000So with my generation, they took that and they turned it into a game where you would stack up the pogs, and you'd hit it with what was called a slammer.
00:04:45.000We collected superhero cards and hockey cards in Canada, but it was past the point where they really accrued in value, not like your generation, where some of those are worth a lot.
00:04:54.000Alright, so you're talking to a fellow hockey fan, even though I'm American.
00:05:13.000Gosh, when you look back when my dad played at U of M... And they basically only drafted Canadian players and American players kind of had to go through this sort of training camp that wasn't even considered because all the best players came from Canada.
00:05:35.000I know, Nashville, Tennessee, but I will say this.
00:05:37.000It's interesting that you bring that up, and it transitions into what I wanted to talk about with you.
00:05:41.000Hobbies, you know, I don't know if you would consider not just collecting, but, you know, for example, like martial arts or like jogging, if you consider these hobbies or activities.
00:06:59.000Because you discussed this, and it goes to the wider social issues.
00:07:02.000So, you know, you've been obviously on AM radio for a long time.
00:07:05.000And then there have been people who've come and gone, largely been political, who've had sometimes bigger ratings and sometimes less ratings than you.
00:07:11.000But you've always approached it from more of a cultural point of view.
00:07:23.000If you look at the new conservatives, they're not interested in micro-policy, but there is this wave of preserving the idea of westernized culture.
00:07:34.000I say this without a hint of meaning to be insulting at all, but as someone who is older compared to these kids, you know, white guy who they once championed as the enemy of everything, evil, older, white guy patriarchy, you've kind of become the cool kid because now people are wanting to see the world through the lens with which you've always presented it.
00:07:55.000Have you seen that change in the last two years?
00:09:56.000I'm not taking anything away from him, but as a younger person, it was far more interesting to me to listen to the male-female hour, the happiness hour, discussing culture at large than a senator who, for example, got caught being bought off with a corrupt bill.
00:10:09.000That's not the kind of voice that appeals to young people who still believe in the same values that you and I do.
00:10:15.000Someone like you is able to communicate, and it's just...
00:10:18.000I don't think you can fake that authenticity.
00:10:20.000So I wonder now, do you have a bunch of...
00:10:23.000Just young whippersnappers coming up and wanting to take pictures.
00:10:26.000I mean, you're a rock star on YouTube.
00:10:29.000I have found a fascinating development, and that is when I talk about nonpolitical subjects, the average age of my caller is in their 20s and 30s.
00:10:44.000When I talk about politics, it's in the 60s.
00:10:50.000And we have that almost exact kind of analytical data that we would have.
00:10:55.000Although, when they tie together, for example, we'll be talking about John Oliver, as we did in Cole, it's more so taking on a cultural icon and falsehoods.
00:11:33.000I will never forget, I give you my word, people who know me a long time from radio, I never exaggerate, because I really wanted to develop a reputation for credibility.
00:11:48.000In graduate school, I was at Columbia University in New York.
00:11:53.000One day, I really remember this vividly, I remember walking around about 116th and Broadway, passing a bar or whatever it was, and thinking, oh my god, I am really alone.
00:12:10.000I wasn't lonely, because I had friends, but I was alone in believing in America, that it was an essentially good place, in believing that communism was evil, in believing in the Judeo-Christian value system.
00:12:30.000At Columbia University, I had one kindred spirit.
00:13:01.000I've seen that they're mostly liberal.
00:13:02.000I don't have the exact numbers in front of me.
00:13:05.000But if you take, for example, the baby boomer generation, who've now become one of the more conservative generations, if you were to take them in their late teens or early 20s and 80 percent of them were liberal and now you were to take you were to take Generation Z and only 60 percent of them would be liberal.
00:13:22.000It still means that a majority of young people are liberal, but not the overwhelming majority that existed with the baby boom generation.
00:15:26.000And people should go to the website and see the trailer, and if they're so inclined, help us make it with a donation, because it's publicly funded, and Hollywood isn't going to make it, but...
00:15:39.000Adam and I are going to go, and we're going to, with humor and with seriousness, expose what's happening on our college campuses in a way that will really awaken vast numbers of Americans, including young people.
00:15:54.000And by the way, I just, and I'm not doing this to patronize you, the same exact issue was in Canada.
00:16:06.000Yeah, because there is no constitutional right to freedom of speech, which was just reaffirmed yesterday, which I'm happy about.
00:16:12.000You know, it's funny that you mention this.
00:16:14.000I was working behind the scenes, had already sold the script, the idea on a film very similar to this.
00:16:19.000It was partially scripted, partially documentary, and we shot some test footage at a couple universities, and one was University of Michigan.
00:17:48.000When I went back and watched it when I was older, it's fantastic.
00:17:50.000And Woody Allen would probably hate The actual commentary that it is on society today because it would vindicate a much more conservative point of view.
00:17:58.000He probably wouldn't like that, but it truly does.
00:17:59.000Well, now you really started me on a very interesting thing.
00:19:15.000Speaking of which, since we're talking about culture, what happened to him?
00:19:19.000I remember the Sean Penn growing up who I said, that man deserves the award for I Am Sam, but this was at the stage in his career where he said award ceremonies were rigged, They were fake.
00:19:27.000It was basically masturbatorial, congratulatory sessions.
00:19:58.000Okay, so speaking of which, another point that you make while we're talking about society, and a lot of young people are making this now, they're falling into this idea that, okay, they're understanding feminism for the fraud that it is.
00:20:09.000You've made the point that feminism, ironically, isn't feminine.
00:20:14.000Whatsoever, that it's actually anti-feminine.
00:20:17.000And I always thought that was interesting.
00:20:19.000So I want you, the master, to explain it to people watching.
00:20:21.000Well, from the beginning, I said feminism is a misnomer.
00:21:55.000Like you said, men will take pride in sales, or, for example, a big part of what defines me outside of, obviously, my faith and my relationships is my work.
00:22:03.000A big component to that is because work is how you provide for your woman, for your family, which is central to masculinity.
00:22:38.000But I knew it later from calls from women onto my radio show.
00:22:43.000And they would say, I would say, so let me ask you, Now that you are 40 years old, 50 years old, if you bought feminism in college, are you happy you did?
00:22:57.000And caller after caller said, I was sold a bill of goods.
00:23:01.000I now am a very high CEO, but you know what?
00:23:05.000It pales in comparison to coming home to a husband and children.
00:23:19.000Oh, my thing was, it's funny how we, I was talking about this morning.
00:23:24.000Feminism is a celebration, really, of masculinity, but somehow they figure it out to vilify.
00:23:30.000The premise of men is immediately vilified.
00:23:33.000For instance, this weekend over Father's Day, a University of Michigan came out with a study saying low testosterone may actually make you a better father.
00:24:33.000If we merely say, yes, the world is getting warmer, but we don't know fully why, and we don't necessarily think we'll become extinct in 2019.
00:25:25.000We have Convert Crowder Week because I said I was at an Irish Catholic wedding and people were trying to convert me to Catholicism.
00:25:29.000And I said if people want to present the case as to why it's the one true church, I will welcome it and we can have this discussion.
00:25:35.000People most excited about it are atheists.
00:25:38.000Unlike new atheism in the era sort of Dawkins, less so Hitchens, and then Sam Harris, a lot of them have turned on it and said, well, you know what?
00:25:46.000I don't necessarily believe in God, but they call themselves Christian sympathetic because they do see Judeo-Christian values as the fulcrum of Western society.
00:25:56.000So I will say that is changing at a very rapid rate just in the last year and a half for people who aren't even believers.
00:26:05.000I hope they'll see our videos, for example, my videos on the Ten Commandments, because even if you're an atheist, at least see why that's the central moral document of humanity.
00:26:17.000Yeah, I agree with you, and let me ask you this.
00:26:20.000Okay, there's no other way to approach it.
00:26:41.000Urine, fecal matter, menstrual blood, and I'm not putting menstrual blood with those other two things, but if the body excretes it, They make art out of it.
00:28:13.000What really bothers me about that, and then I want to get back to the masculinity thing, because I do have an important point I want to ask you about.
00:28:18.000What really bothers me about that is the same thing that bothers me about sports.
00:28:22.000For example, Gerald Morgan, who's often on the show in that chair, he went to Notre Dame.
00:28:26.000He was the first pick to go to Notre Dame, blew his knee out, never got to play football.
00:28:30.000We probably don't know who the best athletes were of all time because they didn't make it through the ringer.
00:28:35.000There are probably some unbelievable athletes who just blew a knee out, blew an ankle out.
00:28:39.000I knew a guy, to compare it to Art, there was a guy in the Montreal subway system.
00:30:36.000This really wouldn't be comfortable to close my legs.
00:30:38.000And it's a law in a place like Madrid.
00:30:41.000And then you have the cultural ramifications of practices, you've talked about this, like smoking, cigars, pipes, the things that men have naturally enjoyed for a long time.
00:30:49.000These are being stripped away, eliminated as, like you said, even hobbies, let alone rights, while we're adding new non-existent rights to the feminine.
00:30:58.000That seems to be something that has really turned off a lot of young males, including even some young formerly feminists.
00:31:06.000Well, it's good to hear because I have said often, I feel sympathy for this generation.
00:31:30.000In Charlotte, North Carolina, they were given an order.
00:31:33.000Do not refer to your students as boys and girls, just as students.
00:31:39.000Because they don't want to impose a gender identity on a 10 year old.
00:31:43.000Yeah, I actually would take the other view where if you allow your 10-year-old to go through a sex change operation or any kind of hormone replacement therapy, you should be locked away for child abuse.
00:31:59.000Well, speaking of that, I don't know if you've talked about this on your show, but just as far as science, you know the whole organic food trend.
00:32:06.000Obviously, you're in California, and I'm sure you're aware of BPA-free.
00:32:38.000But then, when injected directly into your ass, however, we're supposed to believe that estrogen replacement therapy in the male anatomy is consequence-free.
00:32:48.000It's something I've never had explained to me other than I'm a hate speaker.
00:32:52.000Well, other than those who feel that they're women, who would get that?
00:35:55.000It stuck with me because I remember providing that answer to teachers in college and they just said, you're getting an F, so just stop speaking.
00:36:02.000By the way, I'm just curious, where do you hear my show?
00:36:05.000Well, now I would just hear it online.
00:36:06.000I haven't listened to radio in a long time.
00:36:18.000No, actually, we visited Dallas, and then I was in Montreal, and I would listen to case guy online, because that was the only station I knew.
00:36:23.000We didn't get conservative radio in Montreal.
00:37:00.000If you are to pass the torch, because now you have this massive audience, and you do have the ear of a lot of young people.
00:37:06.000We've talked about masculine and feminine and kind of culture, Western civilization.
00:37:10.000If there's one takeaway that you want younger people, people listening to this show, to take away as far as what is most important for them to learn and understand to take that torch from your generation and make sure that it's not lost as they pass it on.
00:37:29.000I have in my mind, and I'm racing through Really, what idea would I like to leave most?
00:37:37.000I think in the final analysis, this may not be the most important, but there is none that is more important.
00:37:48.000People are not basically good, and the most important task of a society is to figure out how to make people good.