I have seven campus speeches in the next four days. If you live in Wisconsin, Indiana, or Michigan, please come out to one of the lectures and introduce yourself. The Campus Leadership Program, of which I am the director, organized the lectures through its growing network of student groups.

On Monday, I speak at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside at noon (Greenquist Hall, Room 103) and at the University of Wisconsin-Madison at 7 p.m. (Memorial Union, Old Madison Room). On Tuesday, I speak at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at noon (Union Room 191) and at Notre Dame at 8:30 p.m. (DeBartolo Hall, Room 141). On Wednesday, I speak at Ball State at 7 p.m. (Student Center, Room 301). On Thursday, I speak at the Thomas Cooley School of Law in Lansing, Michigan at 4 p.m. and at Michigan State in East Lansing at 7:30 p.m. (Wells Hall, B102). The last time I spoke at Michigan State, an overseer of a campus building threatened me with arrest if I spoke. I'm hoping the reception this time is more tolerant.

Dan,

Why the Left Hates America is such a great book. You should try to make it to Marquette University here in Milwaukee, Wisconsin next time. I can't make the noon speech at UW-Milwaukee because of class and travel problems but I'd like to hear you in person soon.

Dear Dan,

I’m glad that I have finally found an intellectual that is free from ideology’s sweeping malignance. In no way did I find your focusing on the negative aspects of four thinkers to your left hypocritical. You quite keenly called Kinsey out on stacking his deck with homosexuals to further some (as of yet unidentified) ideology, but stacked that very speech with people who have opposing ideologies to your own. Another thing that didn’t bother me at all was how you strongly cautioned against the use of “ends justifies the means” in the case of the Soviet Union, but when asked to explain why liberals hate America, you employed that exact argument saying that being the richest country in the world is justification for capitalism. I especially enjoyed you equating the “memogate” scandal mistakes to those made by the Bush administration in justifying invading Iraq by saying there were weapons of mass destruction when in fact they existed, as you like to say, “Only in their head”. Observation and logic leads me directly to the fact that the possibility of harming the name of our beloved leader is quite the same as killing thousands of innocent people. I do have one question though. I would like to do what you say and follow observation and logic to reasonable conclusions but I have a problem. How can I reconcile the logical side of myself with the part of me that knows God wants me to spread freedom to the people of the world? I left my intelligent design textbook at home and I forgot the equation that goes something like: I EXIST + I DON”T UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON AROUND ME = GOD IS TALKING TO ME AND WANTS ME TO CARRY OUT HIS WILL. If you have that equation somewhere, with its derivation, I would like to see it sometime.

If you would, please respond to this letter publicly. I know you are a busy guy, but it could do wonders if you could actually prove that you aren’t victim to the same mistakes you are preaching against.

Flynn for president,
Nick – one of those confused “Madison” types

Confused Madison type: "Observation and logic leads me directly...."

Tell us when you get to using logic. We'll wait.

On ends and means: Of course means are pursued for the their ends. That's why we undertake them them. Does capitalism bring prosperity? It appears so. Flynn is not saying that capitalism is dirty business, but the prosperity is worth it, as far as I take it.

For one thing capitalism has proven fruits, where as with Marxism the check is still in the mail. There is a difference in using any means possible to forward a system that hasn't paid off anything yet, and supporting a system that has yielded results. Marxism has as many wars--if not more, as many massacres--if not a lot more, as much expansionism--if not more, much more destabilization of local culture--if not more. What is dispelling "superstition", knocking down churches, and "re-education" have as a goal if not to change the way people behave and destroy an existing culture?

Marxism has yielded zilch, zip, nada. Meanwhile free, free-market societies have set the standard, and are simply judged by Marxist utopians on the basis that they haven't levitated above the ground quite yet.

My experience with liberals is they have a tremendous difficulty not injecting their assumptions into an examination of the oppositions assumptions. Were capitalism as bad as you think it is, that I can buy a player and enough DVDs to anaesthetize myself, would be the case that you lay out. But some people just don't buy that capitalism is worse than any other form of economics that we might otherwise pursue.