The film No Safe Spaces is a “wake-up call to the greatest crisis in American history since slavery,” said Dennis Prager, warning of left-wing machinations to further undermine First Amendment protections for free speech and expression. He joined Friday’s edition of SiriusXM’s Breitbart News Daily for an interview with host Alex Marlow to discuss the film on the day of its launch in theaters.
“This is the wake up call to the greatest crisis in American history since slavery, and that is the assault on free speech, and I don’t exaggerate,” Prager stated. “I’ve been on radio 35 years, and I may be wrong, but I never exaggerate what I believe. There is no question to me this is the greatest threat to the fundamental value of America — liberty — in its history, and certainly since slavery.”
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Prager continued, “We have to wake up America. … I have to be honest. I did not make the film. I am in the film. The people who made the film did a great job. This is a great film. I’ve seen it four times. I would be riveted if I saw it a fifth time.”
No Safe Spaces will initially open in Phoenix, Arizona, with opportunities for national release, explained Prager. “Your listeners in Phoenix have a chance to make this thing national, because if we sell out in Phoenix this weekend, we will go to theaters all over the country. They’re looking at Phoenix as the test case.”
Prager said, “You really can bring a liberal– not a leftist — but a liberal relative [to see No Safe Spaces] because there are a lot of people who are liberal in this film who are frightened by what’s happening on campuses, as well.”
Americans broadly practice political self-censorship due to fear of the left, Prager noted. He has previously warned that fear of the left is more common than fear of God.
“The greatest fears in America are all fears of the left,” determined Prager .”They’re fears of LGBTQ activists, that’s why Procter and Gamble has now announced that its menstrual products are not just for women; the New York Times, the fear of being written up in the New York Times, the desire to be praised by the New York Times; [and] the fear of ostracization at work.”
Prager, who conducts orchestras as an avocation, recalled left-wing attempts to block his conduction of the Santa Monica Symphony in 2015 as illustrative of the left’s intimidation of those detracting from its orthodoxy.
“I got emails from musicians all over America [during this time]. … When I conducted the Santa Monica Symphony at the Disney Concert Hall two years ago … a woman in one of the biggest orchestras in America wrote to me, she’s in her orchestra 35 years, nobody knows she’s a conservative.”
Prager continued, “People come up to me in airports and they whisper, ‘I’m a conservative,’ or they whisper, ‘I’m for Trump.’ That is the grip of fear the left has on America today. People are literally afraid to come out as conservative.”
Marlow asked Prager about hope in pursuit of protecting the values of free speech and expression.
“Whenever I’m asked the hope question, this is my response,” replied Prager. “It’s more cute than it is accurate, but I have to share it. Many years ago, a man I used to visit in Israel all the time — he was a sort of mentor to me, a well-known rabbi in Israel, I used to live at his home — told me a story [about] the early days in Israel when it was really very socialist. He applied for a phone. He [asked] the clerk in the office, ‘How long will it take me to get my phone?’ The clerk [responded], ‘Six months.’ So my friend asked the [clerk], ‘Is there any hope I can it sooner?’, and the [clerk] answered, ‘Sir, there’s always hope. There’s no chance.'”
Humanity’s capacity for darkness is eternal, warned Prager.
“I am too aware of the ability of civilization to decline rapidly,” Prager remarked. “As a Jew, watching what happened to the most artistic [and] intellectual country in Europe in one generation going from great art to Auschwitz — I am not predicting that for American in any way — but I do not walk around optimistic about a humanity that thinks that George Soros is noble and George Washington is an a-hole. That’s very bad.”
Prager shared his essentialist view of human nature and the human condition. “You have to be a fool if you believe people are basically good. You know why [some] think people are basically good? Because Americans are so nice, and [they] have no experience with mankind.”
“Religious people know that human nature is not basically good,” added Prager. “You can’t be wise if you think human nature is basically good, everything you then believe is going to be nonsense.”
The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) rated No Safe Spaces PG-13, noted Marlow. “There’s also a ratings controversy with the film. The MPAA trying to give you guys an unnecessarily high rating. This is obviously designed to cut down on the amount of people who can see the films. This is a film about free speech, and the MPAA basically proving your point right off the bat.”
The MPAA’s rating of No Safe Spaces as PG-13, explained Prager, was based on an animated assassination of ‘Firsty,’ a cartoon anthropomorphized depiction of the First Amendment.
Prager concluded, “He who controls language, let alone news, controls the society. … I believe as a student of totalitarian societies I believe that only the press in a totalitarian state can brainwash people, and I have learned that that’s not true. The press in a free society can brainwash people, and that is very disconcerting, but I have learned that in America and the [broader] West.”
Breitbart News Tonight broadcasts live on SiriusXM Patriot channel 125 weeknights from 9:00 p.m. to midnight Eastern or 6:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Pacific.
Follow Robert Kraychik on Twitter @rkraychik.
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