Meltzer Responds to Actions at Flynn's Speech
Letter to the Editor
By Daniel Meltzer
Ms. Armstrong’s article in your November 21st issue of The College Voice mimicked the speaker in that it was a sensationalist ranting that had an air of offensiveness without any real substance to it. That the event may or may not have been called “World War V”, as mentioned in the article, is ridiculous in itself. The next several paragraphs read like a baseball card. Daniel Flynn’s weight and height are discussed on the front page of the paper, and yet the article left out vital information: such as that Daniel Flynn said things that night which included, “If women want to be paid as much as men do, they should stop getting pregnant,” and that sexual education in third world countries amounts to nothing more than “baby-killer training.”
Daniel Flynn is a reactionary bandwagon-jumper, who saw opportunity in the Coulter/Savage/Hannity trend of leftist bashing. What is most sad about Daniel Flynn, is that while his conservative pals have seen their books on best-seller lists, his mediocre drivel hasn’t made it. Perhaps this is because his arguments are even more baseless than Coulter’s. A favorite strategy of Daniel Flynn’s is to make the United States look good by contrasting it to third world and developing nations. He fails to realize that if he were to make the same comparisons with more developed nations, his points (that Americans have nothing more to accomplish on the fronts of combating racism, classism, and sexism) would fall short.
Daniel Flynn’s other favorite approach to his politics is to accuse those with whom he disagrees of hating America. It was this tactic of trivializing any dissent from his political standpoint that I stood up against. The fact that he chose to address me at all reveals that he was truly an amateur.
Given Flynn’s flustered response to me simply standing and not facing him, his microphone hand shaking as he yelled childish slurs, makes me doubt his earlier statements of being prepared for anything. He did not have the cool of someone who knew what he was doing. As he rattled off offensive comment after offensive comment, others in CCLEFT stood up and faced away from him. Several chose to stand when he referred to anti-war protesters as “fruit loops” and “crackpots,” something that they felt was a direct and childish attack on them.
Hecklers of Flynn included but were not limited to members of CCLEFT. The president of the sophomore class, fed up with hearing generalization after generalization made of the people who were sitting around him, made one comment at a particularly upsetting comment about leftists, when he called out, “You’re generalizing!” “Do you have Tourette’s?!” Flynn screamed, flustering, pointing, showing at once both his compassion for those with neurological disorders and his feelings for those who disagree with him, “Seriously, you must have Tourette’s!” This is one charming response to crowd dissidents Flynn offered that night, but there were many others.
I will have it known that no member of CCLEFT said, “get over yourself” to me, as stated in the article. This is a bold-faced lie. There were 40 members of CCLEFT in attendance that evening, and all of them knew (due to discussions of actions that were held in the week before) and agreed to the fact that if you felt seriously offended by what Daniel Flynn said, we did not want to do things such as pull out his microphone cord, or any sort of sabotage. Instead, we felt it would be an acceptable action to stand up and not face him.
What I find fascinating is that Flynn’s First Amendment Rights were considered by some to be in jeopardy by these actions. I disagree entirely with that. His speech continued: no one in CCLEFT or otherwise stopped him from speaking. So where was the First Amendment issue? And was I not also exercising my right to free speech by standing up? Just because this man has a right to speak does not automatically warrant my respect for his views, and as I was not physically stopping his speech, he was exercising his right, unimpeded.
CCLEFT’s presence and advertising to the campus was a large reason this speaker got so much student turnout: Campus Republicans, for all of their bragging about their “100 strong” filled no more than two rows of seats.
I also agree that if CCLEFT brings in a speaker, that the Campus Republicans would never protest. Daniel Flynn made sure to point out that when he said that the Left hates America, that he is not talking about liberals, or democrats (even though he continued to bash anti-war protesters, a group made up of largely those groups). No, he was quick to state that the Leftists he was talking about were the minority. CCLEFT’s speaker (if we ever bring one in) would not be protested, because CCLEFT would never bring anyone on campus who deliberately attacks a minority group and accuses them of hating America if they disagree with him. There would be no need for protest.
I consider it highly irresponsible of the Campus Republicans to bring this bigot on campus, and it is this irresponsibility that has severed many ties from their already loosely knit organization. Several people renounced their membership with the Campus Republicans as a direct result of Flynn’s being brought to campus. I’ll have you know that on the night of Daniel Flynn’s speech, 19 new members joined CCLEFT, 9 of which signed up after his speech, in support of actions taken that night.
In summation, CCLEFT considers the actions taken on November 17th to be an enormous success, if for no other reason than that it got the campus talking politics for the first time in a long time.