Controversial speaker meets open minds
By Jackie Zimmermann, Staff Writer
October 8, 2007 | 12:44 p.m.
Book-burning, name-calling, physical attacks -- author Dan Flynn has experienced it all, and with a book called “Why the Left Hates America: Exposing the Lies That Have Obscured Our Nation’s Greatness,” Flynn expects to be met with some resentment.
Despite Athens’ liberal tendencies, Flynn’s lecture, simply titled “Why the Left Hates America,” was met by an obedient and open-minded crowd at 9 p.m. Wednesday in Baker University Center Theater.
Flynn, a controversial yet conversational speaker, began his lecture by asking members of the audience to shout out the names of well-known liberals. He was met with common names such as “Hillary Clinton,” “Barack Obama” and “John Edwards.” A member of the audience even paid tribute to another Wednesday night speaker by shouting out “Bob Woodward.”
However, Flynn immediately declared that except for some “minor differences,” these people were closer in the political spectrum to George Bush. “My book is not called Why Democrats and Liberals Hate America,” Flynn said. “It’s ‘Why the Left Hates America.’ It’s more Gore Vidal than Al Gore.”
According to Flynn, leftists work outside the system to try to make a dramatic change, while liberals work inside it to gradually help the country.
To help ease into his speech, Flynn used a clip from “Monty Python’s Life of Brian” that showed the People’s Front of Judea trying to organize the fall of imperialist Rome. Flynn drew parallels between the People's Fronts sudden realization of all the progress the Romans had helped them make and how the left in America never seems willing to give the U.S. any credit for things like progress in technology or increased life expectancy through medical advancements. Along with the movie clip, Flynn used some audio samples to help prove his point. While researching his book, Flynn attended many post-9/11 and anti-war protests. He said that many of the “crack jobs and fruit loops” that attended these rallies had “no intent to persuade” the public. “They just wanted to shout things and alienate people,” he said.
Flynn’s lecture touched on numerous political and social ideas, including a long, hard look at the landslide majority of liberals in the academic world. He made reference to some of the “buzz” words one hears on many college campuses, including “tolerance” and “diversity.” However, Flynn pointed out that, despite these promising words, college and university campuses are where his books are burned and his lectures are canceled. “That’s the kind of tolerance and diversity you get from people who give a lot of lip service to tolerance and diversity,” he said.
Despite some of his controversial ideas, Flynn’s speech was not met by the same animosity he has encountered on other campuses, like the University of California, Berkeley, which he referred to as a “leftist epicenter.” Instead, the night took on a very conversational feel, and the question-and-answer portion of the speech was more of an extended discussion than a heated debate. Flynn officially closed the speech with a quote from Jeanne Kirkpatrick encouraging Americans to “face the truth about their country, no matter how unpleasant that truth may be,” but he invited people who had not gotten their questions answered to continue the conversation while he signed books.
Flynn was invited to speak at Ohio University by the OU College Republicans. He frequents numerous universities throughout the country and has had articles published in the “The Boston Globe,” “The American Enterprise,” “The Washington Times,” “Human Events” and “National Review Online,” along with other publications. From 1994 to 1997, he served as a program officer for Young America's Foundation, from 1997 to 2003, as the executive director of Accuracy in Academia and from 2004 to 2005 as the director of the Campus Leadership Program at the Leadership Institute. To find out more about Dan Flynn and to read his blogs on politics, movies, sports and other topics of interest, visit Flynn Files.