Dennis Prager's ridiculous comments about sex are not his only outrageous remarks. He is a Neocon Jew oddly endorsing not only fundamentalist 'morality', but embracing RW Christianist views, after all. And he is a staple of conservative talk radio infiltration, propagandizing America with lies and mythology constructed from traditional American imagery. Prager's primary focus has always been the so called culture war and the need for a religious fundamentalism to rule government and politics, as Prager explains here:
But Jews and Christians who believe in a divinely revealed Bible do not trust the heart as a guide to doing the right thing (indeed, that Bible repeatedly warns us not to). That difference – do I listen to my heart or to what I believe is God’s word? – explains most of the differences between right and left. Much more than whether one believes in God.
What follows next is a compendium of some of Prager's outrageous remarks.
Prager's Culture War waged for the installment of theocracy
This column, The (Culture) War of the Word, should you read it, expresses that:
I have come to realize that the great divide in values is not between those who believe in God and those who do not but between those who believe in a divine text and those who do not.
This explains in large measure the great culture war in the United States. Americans, of course, are divided not so much by religion as between right and left. Jews and Christians on the left agree with each other on just about every political and social question, and Jews and Christians on the right do the same.
So what distinguishes leftist Jews from rightist Jews and leftist Christians from rightist Christians? It essentially comes down to their belief in the Bible, not their belief in God.
This seemingly innocuous statement of his personal belief is far more dangerous in its sweeping world view that anyone who does not follow a fundamentalist literalist interpretation of the Bible is politically wrong. I have no doubt that Prager would happily endorse violent enforcement of Biblical literalism if he had the power to achieve it. That is what characterizes Christian Reconstructionism, more about it here and here. I find such statements and his advocacy of culture war, and his entrenched position on the air in radio far more disturbing and dangerous than his ludicrous column on married male female sex relations. My interpretation of his controversial comments on sex are that he was not advocating rape, but I could see a slippery slope argument on that account having validity. This is not the topic of my diary, however, my diary is about Prager's other outrageous comments and what they mean.
Prager's Anti-Muslim smear campaign
Prager was also one of the primary agitators of the RW controversy over a Muslim representative in Congress:
Prager created a national controversy in late 2006 when he argued in a column that Keith Ellison, the first Muslim to be elected to Congress, should not be allowed to be sworn in to office using the Koran instead of the Bible, which Prager argued "undermines American civilization"(November 28, 2006). He wrote that it would be "an act of hubris that perfectly exemplifies multiculturalist activism—my culture trumps America's culture. What Ellison and his Muslim and leftist supporters are saying is that it is of no consequence what America holds as its holiest book; all that matters is what any individual holds to be his holiest book. Forgive me, but America should not give a hoot what Keith Ellison's favorite book is."
Prager's column prompted outrage from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which argued that Prager should be removed from his position as a presidential appointee on the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council, which oversees the Holocaust memorial in Washington, DC...
Prager's promotion of Neocon foreign policy wars for Empire and domestic aggression against its opposition:
Although not a participant in neoconservative-led advocacy campaigns like the Project for the New American Century, Prager consistently espouses views that buttress the neoconservative line on both foreign and domestic affairs. In a December 2003 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal titled "Ten Lessons from Saddam Hussein's Capture," Prager provided a pithy summary of neocon views. Among the supposed lessons: "America is the greatest force for good on the planet. America, with the support of Britain and some other countries, and against the rest of 'world opinion,' liberated Iraq from evil." "The positive effect on humanity of good vanquishing evil cannot be overstated... Most of the Left does not hate evil; hatred of evil is primarily found on the Right.
Prager's propaganda propagating fantasy world RW memes about the Left and Bush:
In Prager's column on 10-28-08, at Townhall.com, "Why the Left Wants to Change America" he states that "the Left" wants to change America because:
The truth is that aside from the Iraq war, which is turning out to be quite successful, George W. Bush's policies have not been particularly controversial or even particularly right-wing. But the left has constructed for itself a view of America that, if you subscribe to it, makes radical change imperative.
The left, from The New York Times to MoveOn.org, has led itself and others to believe that:
--George W. Bush lied America into war.
--Tens of thousands of Iraqis and more than 4,000 Americans have been killed in a war waged in order to line the pockets of Vice President Dick Cheney's friends.
--The Constitution has been trampled on.
--America has become a torturing country.
--America's poor have become far more numerous and far more downtrodden.
--American troops in Iraq repeatedly have engaged in atrocities against innocent civilians.
--The opportunity for economic self-improvement has ceased for most Americans...
--Republican rallies are hate-fests...
--America is on the road to fascism.
Now, as it happens, none of those things is true. But the left believes them all. That is why radical "change" becomes mandatory -- or America will collapse
But as for the left, it lives in a bubble of its making. That is why most leftists live in places where nearly everyone shares their fantasies -- bubbles such as Manhattan, San Francisco, Boston, the west side of Los Angeles, and the most hermetically sealed of the bubbles: universities. They interact almost only with other people who share their fantasy world of America Made Bad.
I don't need to deconstruct this column, it speaks for itself, but it is standard generic boilerplate of the extreme Conservapedia revisionist Fox News Right Wing. BTW, Conservapedia can be altered by contributions-- have at it!
Prager sells the left media bias elected Obama myth, along with a bigger lie that that bias is part of a whole left conspiracy to build am evil secular humanist society:
Prager's main mission is spreading RW memes such as , that pro Obama media bias led to his election:
Given how obvious this bias is, the question is not whether liberals in the media tend to offer biased reporting. The question is why? Why can’t liberal news people report the news without any slant?...
The people who most scorn what they deem the religious "Dark Ages" are trying to building a secular-left dark age in our time. Because the left is a religion, a substitute for the Christianity it seeks to displace.
In this column, Prager goes on to describe liberal/left judges, university professors and reporters as being part of some conspiracy to create a secular humanist world. This again is standard Christianist RW boilerplate.
Prager complains about minority and gay claims of oppression and whines about oppression of U.S. RW Christians:
Of course if none of these examples have bothered you much, this column should get you going:
For a generation, America has been awash in the celebration of minorities and minorities celebration of themselves. Just recall Black is Beautiful or I am a woman, I am invincible.
At the same time, the majority group in America -- white Christians -- has been allowed to celebrate very little. Rather, they have constantly been reminded of what they should be ashamed of -- their racism, sexism, homophobia, patriarchy, and xenophobia -- real and alleged.
Those, poor oppressed American Christianists, waaah.
Prager goes on into further idiocy:
But what about minority shame?
Why does one almost never hear expressions of group shame from members of any American group other than white Christians (specifically, white Christian male heterosexuals)? Are the only evildoers in America white male heterosexual Christians? Is there something inherently wrong about members of minorities expressing anything but group pride? Are there no minority sins worthy of shame?...
I'll spare you his dreary sermon on that topic and move along to his more absurd conclusion:
It would seem, then, that group shame is a good thing.
There are at least three reasons:
- It is maturing. Only children think only well of themselves. A group that only expresses pride is essentially a group of children.
Wow, talk about a prejudiced stereotype and complete nonsense. I'm an only child, and take great offense to this.
- If one expresses group pride, one is morally obligated to express group shame. Obviously, this does not apply to any person who does not identify with, let alone take pride in being a member of, a group.
I call b.s. on that.
- If only the majority group is expected to express shame, then only the majority group is expected to be governed by rules of morality. It is, ironically, the highest moral compliment to Americas white Christians that they are the only American group of whom expressions of shame are expected. It means more is morally expected of them than of anyone else.
Flattering yourself a bit, there eh, Prager?
The relative absence of expressions of shame in the Muslim world over the atrocities committed in Islams name is an example of the above. The labeling of blacks who express shame over disproportionate rates of violent crime and out-of-wedlock births in the black community as Uncle Toms is another. The absence of any expression of shame in the gay community over the current blacklisting -- and attempts to economically destroy -- anyone who donated to the California proposition defining marriage as between a man and a woman is another example.
Christianists = good, Muslim, black, gay = unrepetant sinning bad guys. This column is terrific in its pure unalderated idiocy. What makes it more than laughable is how dangerous what Prager is selling is. That's what I believe we should be protesting.
Conservative talk radio propagandists have new multimillion dollar contractsfor the Obama era, and Prager is one of the most extreme of them. For those interested in finding more outrageous comments, here is Prager's archive page at Townhall.com.