Dennis Prager: Nukes Threaten People; Ideas Threaten Civilizations

[Machiavelli]

Dennis Prager
Townhall
July 18, 2017

Last week, I tweeted, "The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does."

To my surprise, the tweet went viral. And while there were more likes than dislikes, 99 percent of the written reactions were negative...

But it wasn't the ad hominem insults that I found troubling. What was troubling was the low state of logical thinking that so many responses reflected. This was exemplified by their reminding me how important a free press is to democracy (as if attacking the behavior of the media were the same as denying the need for a free press); their asking how many nukes the media have compared with Russia (as if a threat to lives were the same as a threat to a civilization); and their thinking that my tweet was about President Donald Trump (he was never mentioned, and the words were just as true when Barack Obama was president).

My tweet was about the Western left undoing Western civilization. My one regret is that I did not mention universities along with the media...

Full article

[driftdiver]

He's right although enough nukes will certainly do a job on civilizations.

[HonestJohn]

Nukes threaten people?

The last time I checked, nukes sit in silos and ammo bunkers and don't do much threatening at all.

People threaten people.  People with nukes threaten moreso.

What next, Prager?  Guns threaten people, too?

[Smokin Joe]

Nukes threaten people?

The last time I checked, nukes sit in silos and ammo bunkers and don't do much threatening at all.

People threaten people.  People with nukes threaten moreso.

What next, Prager?  Guns threaten people, too?

I get your point, an inanimate object is just that, an inanimate object. Nothing more without someone to use it, and that someone will have an idea they will use the object to achieve.

See? Ideas are more dangerous. Which was his real point.

Tools are tools. Drive a nail, fracture a skull, it is the same hammer. Different idea.
It comes down to the use you see for that hammer, the hammer is just the tool.

[HonestJohn]

I get your point, an inanimate object is just that, an inanimate object. Nothing more without someone to use it, and that someone will have an idea they will use the object to achieve.

See? Ideas are more dangerous. Which was his real point.

Tools are tools. Drive a nail, fracture a skull, it is the same hammer. Different idea.
It comes down to the use you see for that hammer, the hammer is just the tool.

Yep.

And to see ideas and how they can propagate, look at internet memes.

They were spread, lightning fast, throughout the 2016 election cycle.

Alt-righters took an ordinary comic frog and made it their own, for instance.  And when it became widely known, it then became a Trumper rally cry overnight.

And he references his own tweet, that the 'media' is a threat to America.  Another idea, propagating lightning fast.  (Let's ignore that fact that he *IS* one of the media he condemns, while we're at it.)

--

I think what's dangerous is that we have pundits who think they have the right; nay, the DUTY to tell us 'lesser' men what and how to think.  And Prager is one of them.

[Smokin Joe]

Yep.

And to see ideas and how they can propagate, look at internet memes.

They were spread, lightning fast, throughout the 2016 election cycle.

Alt-righters took an ordinary comic frog and made it their own, for instance.  And when it became widely known, it then became a Trumper rally cry overnight.

And he references his own tweet, that the 'media' is a threat to America.  Another idea, propagating lightning fast.  (Let's ignore that fact that he *IS* one of the media he condemns, while we're at it.)

--

I think what's dangerous is that we have pundits who think they have the right; nay, the DUTY to tell us 'lesser' men what and how to think.  And Prager is one of them.

True enough. "Lyin' Ted" was the Big Lie in action, and, God help us all, it was working among at least some of the masses. Enough of them, anyway.
Daily Facebook gossip wrecks lives, sometimes people who can't deal with that end their lives over it.

Prager is a commentator, not the oracle of Western wisdom, (there isn't one, outside of Scripture, and that's not just my opinion). However, even foolish men have been known to say wise things. If you read the whole article, you ran across this gem, a nibble for thought:

The real threat to Western civilization is Western civilization ceasing to believe in itself. And, in that regard, Russia poses no danger, while the left-wing-dominated media and universities pose an existential threat.

I might not go quite so far as to say Russia poses no danger (everyone is dangerous, to some degree), but the first part about 'failing to believe in the fundamental principles that made us great being the start of our own destruction' I do agree with, as well as the threat posed by Media and Universities alike in pimping the whole multiculturalistic meme.

 I'm not ignoring that Prager is part of the media, but he's a commentator, not trying to pass this off as fact, but opinion. At least in part there is merit to what he says.

[driftdiver]

Nukes threaten people?

The last time I checked, nukes sit in silos and ammo bunkers and don't do much threatening at all.

People threaten people.  People with nukes threaten moreso.

What next, Prager?  Guns threaten people, too?

People without nujkes can threaten they can have ideas.  Without nukes those threats are much less significant.

[HonestJohn]

True enough. "Lyin' Ted" was the Big Lie in action, and, God help us all, it was working among at least some of the masses. Enough of them, anyway.
Daily Facebook gossip wrecks lives, sometimes people who can't deal with that end their lives over it.

Prager is a commentator, not the oracle of Western wisdom, (there isn't one, outside of Scripture, and that's not just my opinion). However, even foolish men have been known to say wise things. If you read the whole article, you ran across this gem, a nibble for thought: I might not go quite so far as to say Russia poses no danger (everyone is dangerous, to some degree), but the first part about 'failing to believe in the fundamental principles that made us great being the start of our own destruction' I do agree with, as well as the threat posed by Media and Universities alike in pimping the whole multiculturalistic meme.

 I'm not ignoring that Prager is part of the media, but he's a commentator, not trying to pass this off as fact, but opinion. At least in part there is merit to what he says.

The issue isn't that the West doesn't believe in itself, but that there are two different visions of what the west actually is.

As an example, are the views captured in:

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

...the same as those who make up the base of European 'conservative' parties?  Or even that of the avid base of Trump's support?

That quote is a famous piece making up the notion, the idea of what America (and the West) represent.

[Smokin Joe]

Actually, the America I was thinking of:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by
their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit
of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed,—  That whenever any Form of Government
becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to
institute new Government...

...got here long before the statue or the poem.

[HonestJohn]

Actually, the America I was thinking of:

...got here long before the statue or the poem.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.  Some, though (not you), are trying to make it so.

[goatprairie]

I agree and disagree with Prager.  I perceive our media to be currently a bigger danger simply because I don't see Russia as a long term threat. Putin is the latest in a long line of autocratic thugs strutting around the world stage, but he is no world conqueror.
But it's not our media as much as academia that is the biggest threat to the survival of the U.S. as how it was intended to be from the founding.  Every screwball leftist idea first originates in academia and spreads to other institutions  like entertainment and the media.
And I see radical Islam as a much bigger threat than Russia by the simple fact that Muslims outbreed decadent westerners by a large margin.  Unfortunately, the world's Muslims have not gotten along with the supposedly universal ideas as represented in our constitution and the constitutions of many western, democratic countries.
 Islam is as much a dangerous philosophy as modern leftism.
Putin will be gone in twenty to thirty years...hopefully less.  Radical Islam and leftism will still be pernicious, destructive ideologies for a lot longer....unless something is done about them.

[Smokin Joe]

I agree and disagree with Prager.  I perceive our media to be currently a bigger danger simply because I don't see Russia as a long term threat. Putin is the latest in a long line of autocratic thugs strutting around the world stage, but he is no world conqueror.
But it's not our media as much as academia that is the biggest threat to the survival of the U.S. as how it was intended to be from the founding.  Every screwball leftist idea first originates in academia and spreads to other institutions  like entertainment and the media.
And I see radical Islam as a much bigger threat than Russia by the simple fact that Muslims outbreed decadent westerners by a large margin.  Unfortunately, the world's Muslims have not gotten along with the supposedly universal ideas as represented in our constitution and the constitutions of many western, democratic countries.
And Islam is as much dangerous philosophy and modern leftism.
Putin will be gone in twenty to thirty years...hopefully less.  Radical Islam and leftism will still be pernicious, destructive ideologies for a lot longer....unless something is done about them.

Yep. the ideas, the ideologies, inherent in both Islam and the current crop of Leftists, Libertines, and moral degenerates are the cancer that will eat Western Civilization from within if not excised and disposed of. The Universities are the primary tumor, metastasizing throughout the culture along the information arteries of the Media, the 'entertainment industry' (how many saw the 'two daddies' scene in Star Trek Beyond?), and bleeding into the organs of government, economics, and philosophy.  The patient is in serious condition already.

[rangerrebew]

Nukes Threaten People; Ideas Threaten Civilizations
Dennis Prager
 
Posted: Jul 18, 2017 12:01 AM
 

Last week, I tweeted, "The news media in the West pose a far greater danger to Western civilization than Russia does."

To my surprise, the tweet went viral. And while there were more likes than dislikes, 99 percent of the written reactions were negative.

Typical reactions were:

https://townhall.com/columnists/dennisprager/2017/07/18/nukes-threaten-people-ideas-threaten-civilizations-n2356195

[EC]

Don't normally approve of commenters putting themselves in the frame in their editorials - but Prager did good. It was a good hook and he used it to illustrate well.