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May 27, 2021 - Dennis Prager Show
08:38
Julie Hartman: The Truth Shall Set You Free
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How would you characterize your political views two years ago?
I really wasn't very engaged politically, but I would call myself liberal because that was just all I knew.
And it's the default position.
Definitely.
Right.
If one doesn't think politically and socially and morally, one is a liberal.
It's the birthright, as it were.
And then you saw the videos, read my books.
It had a...
Big effect on your thinking.
And then I invited you to come on the show.
So may I tell the story?
Yes, please do.
So, you had second thoughts about appearing on the show.
Tell me if I got anything wrong.
Well, just to clarify, you invited me in here to watch your show.
Ah, yes, thank you.
That's important.
Then once I was here, you asked me, are you willing to come on?
I really, yes.
It's like...
Do you see that guillotine?
Okay.
So this is really important for you, my listeners, to understand.
She had zero expectation of coming on the show.
I just invited her to sit in.
And then I thought, well, why not tell everybody about the metamorphosis that you have undergone philosophically, intellectually, and...
That was a very, very difficult question for Julie, because to appear on my show meant that you were, I guess, coming out of the closet.
I mean, not just coming out of the closet, with a megaphone, with an orchestra, and a marching band.
What happened was, this really is etched in my memory.
She said, I said, listen, please know, in no way is there pressure for you to come on, and I won't think any less of you or anything, but I know what it means if you appear a student, Harvard student, on the Dennis Prager Show.
I know what that will mean.
Thought about it and then said, during a break, may I call my mom?
And of course, yes.
And I don't know what the conversation was like, but you came back in and said, I'll come on the show.
And I witnessed, it's not often in life you witness a transformative moment in a person's life.
By the way, it's not common that people have transformative moments.
Most people don't.
That was.
So now I would like you to tell me and my listeners what happened after that.
Well, first of all, that was such a lovely experience and you were so kind to me.
You didn't put pressure on me at all.
And I had a lot of fun speaking about it and it felt very cathartic to finally be open about my beliefs.
So that day I go home, I tell some of my supportive friends that I appeared on your show and they were very happy for me.
The next morning I wake up and your show, I put a clip of it on YouTube, which of course they're allowed to do.
I agreed to appear on the show.
It goes on these various sites.
And it started circulating around Harvard, around a lot of the people I go to school with, some people who I went to high school with.
There were many people who were supportive, but boy, did I get slammed.
I mean, I had so many people coming at me.
And interestingly, a lot of them actually didn't take issue with what I said on the radio because it was pretty benign.
I really just said that, you know, I was very influenced by PragerU and your radio show and your books.
But they took great issue that I was on your show.
They thought that by me coming onto this platform, I was supposedly supporting bigotry, white supremacy, all of the typical idiotic liberal party lines.
And I said to them, well, first of all, I just reject the notion that Dennis Prager is all of those things and that his platform espouses any of those kinds of views.
But second of all...
I am only responsible for what comes out of my mouth.
I'm not responsible for what comes out of Dennis Prager's mouth.
I am just responsible for my own words.
But these people were just very, very vicious.
But another thing I want to say, and I hope this gives some encouragement to people who might want to, as you said, come out as conservative themselves.
I also had a lot of people in my community reach out to me and say, I would never say this publicly, but I'm really proud of you, and I support you, and I agree with you, but it's just...
The cost is too high for me to say that publicly.
But I have to say, for about a week or two, it was so bad for me.
I couldn't eat.
I couldn't sleep.
I really started tormenting myself because I thought, did I do something wrong?
Was I wrong to go on the show and say it?
Now we're about a year after it.
I really am so much more comfortable in my conservatism.
I realized I did nothing wrong.
I am doing exactly what a college kid should be doing, exploring her beliefs, seeking out other opinions.
And I've just realized how wrong and inappropriate it is for them to smear me like that.
They have no tolerance for diversity of thought.
I did not know all of that.
I had a sense of it.
I did not know all of that.
I knew you went through the mill.
It's sort of coming out of the closet.
I'm telling this to all of you because I would say a vast number of you listening are in the closet, fearful of putting on a Facebook page, just a column that I wrote, or Ben Shapiro, or Larry Elder.
I mean, it's endless.
Victor Davis Hanson.
You're afraid to do that, and you're right to be afraid to do that.
And there will be a two-week auto da fe, to use a Spanish Inquisition term.
You will be burned for two weeks.
And then, sort of like, what is it that Navy SEALs go through that crazy, horrible period to test who has the...
The strength to survive horrible conditions, but then you come out and you are so happy.
That's a great analogy.
It's so true.
Yes, it is a good analogy.
And that's why I make this appeal.
A friend of mine in one of the major orchestras of the country, obviously not necessary to say which, but it's one of the top ones, and he finally did it.
He finally came out of the closet.
He is the happiest man I know right now.
Well, you find that it, I found at least, that it was causing me more pain to stay silent about my beliefs than it was to be open about them and to be hated.
I want to get that quote.
No, no, really, because I think I want to write my next column advocating that people come out of the closet.
It is liberating.
It really is liberating.
What did you just say?
Do you remember what you just said?
Because I want to try to commit it to memory.
Well, luckily it's on the radio, so we can go back.
But I think what I said was it was causing me more pain to stay.
Ah, that's it.
That is so right.
It is.
It was actually causing me physical pain because I look at so many of these leftists and they are using their freedom to subvert freedom.
Right.
Hold it there.
Julie Hartman.
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