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3-30-98

By Luke Ford

On AM 790, KABC, Dennis Prager delivered his daily show from noon to three PM. DP said that we should not be shocked by children doing evil, such as the shootings in Arkansas last week. Humans start out selfish and lousy and generally, society makes us better. If you saw a building with smashed windows and spray painted graffiti, you would think that kids did it, not senior citizens.

Prager noted how most people think that their kids are good kids. We need to judge their actions, and listen to how their teachers describe them.

Graffiti announces that you are entering a crime zone. Profanity is a form of graffiti says DP. Spewing profanity publicly is a sign of bad character.

Another warning sign about your child's character is torturing animals.

A couple of kids phoned up annoyed that Prager would judge profanity and profanity users. Others phoned up to say how they used to use profanity and torture animals, but faith in Jesus Christ turned them around.

Prager pointed out the verse in John 8:44, where Jesus tells Jews that they have the devil for a father. This verse has long been used to persecute Jews. All Jews are Pharisees. No other form of Judaism survived.

Anyone who believes in Jesus as Messiah and God is a Christian, and no longer an adherent of Judaism. There are no Jews for Jesus.

Prager quoted with approval this article from today's Wall Street Journal:

For Young Guns,

One Strike Ought

To Be Enough

By PETER REINHARZ

The New York Times headline asks "Who Are These Boys?" It refers, of course, to the 11- and 13-year-old accused killers from Jonesboro, Ark. The story talks of a community deep in grief, trying to come to grips with how boys so young could have opened fire on a group of students exiting a middle school.

The media have called upon the usual array of experts to talk about the extent of juvenile crime in America. They offer conflicting statistics to show that juvenile crime is growing, is shrinking, is remaining the same; they also offer remedies as diverse as their data. But most of the people asked to comment express shock at the gravity of the crimes and the tender years of those who have been charged.

It is time that we stopped being shocked and started coming up with appropriate responses to violent juvenile crime. When students are shot in the schools of Paducah, Ky., or in Pearl, Miss., it is the responsibility of those in the criminal justice system to respond responsibly and effectively--not to express surprise and disbelief. The reactions of the "experts" make clear that our juvenile and criminal justice systems are not prepared for these types of events--which, despite our disbelief, have happened before and will happen again.

It is long past time to recognize that violent offenders--no matter if they are 18 or 11 years of age--must be removed from our community for a very long period of time. History teaches us that violence among young males increases through the teenage years and into the early 20s. It is not until about age 23 that crime levels off, and then begins to drop. The drop in violent crime accelerates with age so that at age 30, and then at age 40, the decline is almost vertical. This is confirmed by studies that show lower rates of return to prison as offenders' age at time of release rises.

3-27-98

About twenty years ago, Rabbi Harold Kushner published a bestseller When Bad Things Happen to Good People. As Rabbi Joseph Telushkin points out, people often refer to Kushner's book as WHY Bad Things…

The problem of suffering among good people took up today's Dennis Prager show. DP says there is bad luck. If you get hit by a drunk driver, you probably did not cause it. Numerous callers argued that you are responsible for everything that happens to you, including if you are born of alcoholic parents.

Prager received one prominent call from Stacy, an assistant at The Prager Perspective, DP's office.

Gil wrote on the Prager-List:

Between 1:30 & 2PM, and then repeated for good measure just after the 2PM

break, Dennis had a young caller who said Dennis was worse for passing judgment on the performance of a specific act than were the people who performed it.

Dennis thought that the statement alone "says it all." He failed completely to be prepared to respond to a charge he gets frequently with the eloquence that he has so capably demonstrated at other times . "It says it all," is the statement of someone who has been non-plussed ("Wow, after all my efforts, still I get calls like this! Why do I bother?")

Okay fans, it is time to pony up and give Dennis our support in his despair. Now, admit it. We all get low points, and it just seems like too much to pick onesself up and charge, anew, into the fray. Dennis should have been better prepared, but he wasn't. Maybe next time; but what if there is no next time -- or worse, what if he still is unprepared? He was leaving judgment up to his listeners, "see, this is the problem, doncha see?" and in so doing missed a better opportunity to drive home one of his favorite themes -->

People just do not want to think badly of themselves.

Aside from the obvious ad hominom tactic that the young man was parrotting for his own purposes (whether he knew it or not), there is so much more here that Dennis could spend a week on the phenomenon and only scratch the surface.

And you all feel squeamish about the topic too.. Have any of you NOT felt resentment for having your actions singled out for condemnation by one authority or another -- or worse, by a REAL hypocrite? "Why me when there are so many others who've done the same and worse?"

So because of such past feelings -- or near misses to such feelings when you witnessed friends being condemned for what you yourself didn't get caught at -- you are afraid to come forward at times when yours is the only judgment that will turn the tide of an injustice about to happen. At such times YOU were afraid to be called judgmental. Your childish fear of being called names kept you from standing witness to the truth. YOU WERE A COWARD.

Dennis is no coward. He takes on issues in a public forum that most of us would suddenly become mute when confronted in close quarters (a variation on "Peter, you will denounce me thrice before the cock crows"). Yet, at that moment, circa 2PM Monday, he needed the same help you did when your fear overtook your judgment.

Use your head. You can do it. You have done it. To keep your cool under fire, be prepard for the next time....

WHAT ARE THE ARGUMENTS THAT WHITHER CHARGES OF JUDGMENTALISM?

The Boy Scout motto is "Be Prepard." Well? If you are really a Prager fan, get prepared already. <G>

Gil from Echo Park

It is narcissism to fear disapproval for making sound judgments.

Don't wait for Part 2. We should be pretty disgusted with the lot of us for getting side-tracked on petty issues instead of taking on the bigger issues.

LUKE: The primary question that should be asked before declaring moral judgements is:

Will what I am about to do, do good?

I am assuming no self interest in declaring moral judgements. My motto is:

When it is not clear that what you are about to do will do more good than harm, or more harm than good, and it is overwhelmingly in your self interest to act, then I generally act (in my self interest).

For instance, some of the things I have written about Prager are not obviously good. But in the interest of my writing his biography and putting up a good web site about him, I write.

With very few exceptions, moral judgements should only be passed about specific actions and not persons. Persons are complex. The morality of acts is frequently clear. It may be very clear that things I have written on here are wrong, but that does not declare me bad or sick necessarily, as my writings on the Prager-List are only a tiny part of my total behavior and totality.

Moral judgements should also usually be pronounced in private to the person who has sinned. And they should only be done by someone who has some pull.

There is no point in my reprimanding certain members of this list for instance, if I want to change their behavior, for I have no moral clout with them.

Most of us on this list feel an obligation to imitate God. God judges. God particularly judges actions, frequently in the Torah.

In the final analysis, that is why many of us declare moral judgements. We believe in God, and in the Bible and in upholding religious morality aka ethical monotheism, and that requires varying degrees of opposition to other values.

The trick is in how you do it. My heroes in this regard, whom I value for their sensitivity to others' feelings are:

Dennis Prager, Leibel Lou Rudolph, Errol Gerson, Rabbis Nahum B--verman, Mord--ai Finley, Moshe Cohen, Y--zhock Adl--stein...