Audio Gold
In roughly 50 countries of travel, the best radio program – including music – that I’ve heard anywhere in the world is The Dennis Prager Show. It’s a conservative radio program that talks about politics, religion, morality, relationships and male/female issues, happiness, and much more. In Dennis’ own words, he describes his show as “talking about everything in life”. That description sounds boastful and probably too broad, but it’s is actually quite accurate. At first I found Dennis’ radio show frustrating because many of the things that he would say seemed so foreign to me. But eventually the logic, commitment to truth, and intellectual honesty drew me in and kept me there. Basically the show has become intellectual food and nourishment for me, and I haven’t heard anything nearly as compelling.
Before listening to the show in around 2005, I would pridefully describe myself as liberal or progressive. The main reason for that self description was because I had never really heard a conservative speak or had any positions on the right presented in an articulate way. Prager not only presents positions on the right on his show in a calm, clear, and simple way, but also uses simple logic and analogies that are very powerful. He has an array of guests on his show, from leading conservatives to liberals and even leftists like Howard Zinn.
Dennis describes himself as a liberal up to the election of Ronald Reagan, but says that he still holds mostly liberal positions. On his daily radio show, he frequently illustrates examples of the differences between liberals and The Left, and has started a video course called Prager University (PragerU) that has mushroomed into one of the largest online video courses in the world.
Prager University and the Lawsuit
Each PragerU video course is roughly 5 minutes, is composed of leading thinkers from a variety of courses and promotes “knowledge and clarity on life’s biggest and most interesting topics”. The vast majority of PragerU’s videos are not given by Dennis himself, but from university professors and other scholars and people of interest. Unfortunately, Youtube has restricted – or blocked video access to them if any filtering presets exist – to roughly 30 of the video courses like:
“Why Did America Fight the Korean War?”
“Israel’s Legal Founding”
“What is the University Diversity Scam?”
“The Ten Commandments: Do Not Murder”
Google/YouTube has stated that the censorship of certain videos was because they were deemed “inappropriate” for younger audiences. As you can see from several of the restricted videos, the topics are not exactly barn burners. So as a last resort, Dennis Prager and others have decided to sue Youtube (which is owned by Google).
Prager gives further thought about the censoring:
“Watch any one of our videos and you’ll immediately realize that Google/YouTube censorship is entirely ideologically driven. For the record, our videos are presented by some of the finest minds in the Western world, including four Pulitzer Prize winners, former prime ministers, and professors from the most prestigious universities in America.”
“They are engaging in an arbitrary and capricious use of their ‘restricted mode’ and ‘demonetization’ to restrict non-left political thought. Their censorship is profoundly damaging because Google and YouTube own and control the largest forum for public participation in video-based speech in not only California, but the United States, and the world.”
Censor What?
What’s odd about the censoring is that there nothing inappropriate about the content of the PragerU videos. The videos do not contain any profanity, nudity or otherwise inappropriate (mature) content and they all comply with YouTube’s Terms of Use and Community Guidelines. A big myth about corporations is that they are conservative/right. That may be true in a fiscal sense, but socially they are overwhelmingly left of center from Facebook to Apple to Target, to the NFL and so on.
The censoring of PragerU’s videos seems absurd. I’m actually hopeful that this issue makes it to court so that it receives more national and international attention, because it’s just another example of conservative’s having to fight the leftist urge to control and stifle differing opinion. Fortunately, PragerU has found support from liberals like nationally recognized attorney Alan Dershowitz and former California Governor Pete Wilson as well as other conservatives and media outlets. A few clips relating to the issue are embedded below.
and further explanation of the lawsuit and censorship….