Some more from Prager

In my previous blog I mentioned a new book by Dennis Prager called Still the Best Hope. Here are some more comments from his book, which defends traditional values against assaults from the Left and Islam.

1. Liberals frequently criticize conservatives for fearing change. What we fear is transforming that which is already good.

2. Since the Enlightenment, the secular world has had to believe in man (or "humanity") because if you don't believe in God and you don't believe in humanity, you will despair.

3. The Left has a history of many decent people supporting many bad people doing great harm. Good intentions cause most of the world's great evils.

4. In order to do good in both the personal and social spheres, people need wisdom, common sense, and a moral value system.

5. Those of us who grew up in religious Jewish and Christian schools were taught early in life that our heart is an awful guide to doing what is right, that the human being is essentially flawed, that human nature needs to be constantly controlled, and that the greatest moral insights preceded our birth.

6. Those who value wisdom know that when you give people something for nothing, you produce ungrateful people; that when you obscure the differences between men and women, you end up with many aimless men and angry women; that when you give children "self-esteem" without earning it, you produce narcissists who enter adulthood often incapable of empathy and of handling life; that if you do not destroy evil, if will proliferate; and that if you are kind to the cruel, you will end up being cruel to the kind.

7. If you really want goodness to prevail, wisdom is a key to unlocking it. The heart is not.

8. The most closed-minded people in American and European society today are more likely to be on the Left than in the religious world or on the Right.

9. How do Leftists get elected? The answer is that, through its dominance of the news media, entertainment, media, and educational institutions, the Left is able to successfully demonize the Right. The Left rarely convinces Americans to adopt its views. Rather, it creates a fear of the Right.

10. There is much more racism on the Left than on the Right. The very notion that race is a significant human characteristic – a basic Left-wing tenant – is racist. The notion that whites and black, should not be judged by identical moral standards – or even taught similarly – is also racist.

11. American women have more opportunity and more equality than just about any women in the world today and certainly ever in history. In fact, if either sex is more "oppressed" today, is more likely to be males. If women were incarcerated, let alone murdered, as disproportionately as men are; if only 40% of those getting a bachelors degree were female; if girls dropped out of high school at the rate males do; if females committed suicide as often as – let alone considerably more often than – males do, there would be a national outcry. But for feminists, academics, and CBS News, it is women who are "oppressed."