UW-Madison students and community members gathered Wednesday in Sterling Hall to listen to conservative political commentator Dennis Prager speak on Judeo-Christian morality.
During the event hosted by the Young Americans for Freedom, Prager discussed topics ranging from racism to “gender dysphoria.” Prager’s main concern in his “commencement address you won't hear from your school” was the question of how to make good people.
Prager generated controversy in 2006 for criticizing U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn., the first Muslim elected to Congress, for using a Quran in his swearing in ceremonies because it “undermines American civilization.”
He also has drawn fire for comments suggesting legalized gay marriage could lead to allowing incest and polygamy, as well as remarks that the “heterosexual AIDS crisis” was “entirely manufactured by the left.”
In his speech, Prager argued the division between conservatives and leftists is that the left believes people are inherently good. He explained this view held by so many Americans stems from the ability for Americans to be naïve.
“We have created such a decent society that people’s ideas are warped. People don’t understand how bad the world is if they live in America,” Prager said. “Corruption is normal. In America corruption is an aberration.”
He emphasized that the United States is the “least racist multi-racial country in human history “
Referencing the recent Starbucks controversy over two black men being arrested in a Philadelphia Starbucks for loitering, Prager said he doesn’t know what the “actual moral verdict would be.” He argued that Starbucks ultimately sold out its own employee without giving her the chance to defend herself out of “fear of the left.”
Because people assume others are already good, they have decided all children need is love and a good education, Prager said. He joked if children are given these two things, they will be “well-loved barbarians” — not good people.
Prager’s second major point in his talk was how people act is “more important that how they feel.”
He drew the comparison between children raised in secular homes and children raised in religious homes. He went on to explain that children raised in religious homes, Jewish and Christian, are taught their biggest battle in life is with themselves while children raised in secular homes are taught their greatest battle is with their society.
Prager concluded by expressing his distaste for American universities as institutions of “indoctrination rather than education.”
“I come in here and tell you the most important question a society can ask is how to make people good,” he said. “Is that out of bounds? Is it out of bounds to say there are more than two genders? Is it out of bounds to say we have to teach kids goodness because it doesn’t come naturally?”
