--------- Begin forwarded message ---------- >This is pretty long, but very interesting. Read it if you have some free >time. >----Original Message----- >Subject: Speech by Carleton Heston > > >The following address was given by Charleton Heston at Harvard Law School >about a month ago. If you haven't seen it, you might enjoy it. It must >have been a pretty gutsy performance. This came to me via Chip Chapman. Russ >Limbaugh read it on the air today in its entirety. > > >Speech by Charlton Heston > "Winning The Cultural War" > Harvard Law School Forum > February 16, 1999 > > I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten >class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to >be people." There have been quite a few of them. Prophets from the Old >and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various >nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American >presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo. >If you want the ceiling re-painted I'll do my best. There always seem to >be a lot of different fellows up here. I'm never sure which one of them >gets >to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy. > >As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: If my Creator gave me >the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, >then I want to use that same gift now to re-connect you with your own >sense of liberty ... your own freedom of thought ... your own compass >for what is right. > >Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of >America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this >nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure." Tho= se >words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civ= il >war, >a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say wh= at >resides in your heart. I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood >of liberty inside you ... the stuff that made this country rise from >wilderness into the miracle that it is. > >Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National >Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran >for office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target >for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and >"duped"to a "brain- injured, senile, crazy old man." I know .. I'm pretty >old. >but I sure Lord ain't senile. > >As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment >freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's >much, much bigger than that. > >I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in >which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are >mandated. > >For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 >before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last >year >that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone >else's >pride, they called me a racist. > >I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when >I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your >rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe. > >I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, >when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jew and singling out >innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite. > >Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my >country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, >I was compared to Timothy McVeigh. > >>From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially >saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not >authorized for public consumption!" > >But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd >still be King George's boys-subjects bound to the British crown. > >In his book, "The End of Sanity," Martin Gross writes that "blatantly >irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost >every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new >anti- intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction. >Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a >name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to >separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like >it." >Let me read a few examples. > >At Antioch college in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must >get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting >to final copulation ... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive. > >In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had >been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDs --- the state >commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not >need >not tell their patients that they are infected. > >At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school >team "The Tribe" because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only >to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name. > >In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights >of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have >separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery. > >In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed >in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because >their last names sound Hispanic. > >At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at >Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set >up segregated dormitory space for black students. > >Yeah, I know ... that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes." >Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no >now. >For me, hyphenated identities are awkward ... particularly >"Native-American." >I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a >blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my >grandson is a thirteenth generation native American ... with a capital >letter >on "American." > >Finally, just last month ... David Howard, head of the Washington >D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking >to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means >stingy or scanty. But within days Howard was forced to publicly >apologize and resign. > > As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some >people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of >niggardly,' (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the > meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance." > >What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has >evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be >far behind. > >Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did >political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you >continue >to tolerate it? Why do you, who're supposed to debate >ideas, surrender to their suppression? > >Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they >really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the >superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason. You are >the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American >academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the >cream. But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the >most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord >Bridge. > >And as long as you validate that ... and abide it ... you are by >your grandfathers' standards - cowards. Here's another example. Right now >at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and >researchers >are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. >Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayor's >pending >lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm >manufacturers. > >I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked >at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of >unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of >academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down >your >arms and plead, "Don't shoot me." > > If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see >distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you >think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. >If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a >homophobe. > > Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for >this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. But what can you do? How can >anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? > >The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps >of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin >Luther King and two hundred thousand people. You simply ... disobey. >Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But >when >told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey >social >protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom. > > I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr.King ... who learned > it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who >led those in the right against those with the might. Disobedience is in >our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed >tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in >the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam. In that same >spirit, I >am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of >rogue authority, social directives and onerous law that weaken personal >freedom. > >But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself >at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be >humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at >Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma. > >You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but >my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me. Let me >tell you a story. A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who >was >selling a CD called "Cop Killer" celebrating ambushing and murdering police >officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the >biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world. Police across the country >were >outraged. Rightfully so - at least one had been murdered. But >Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the >media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard >Time/Warner >had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares >at the time, so I decided to attend. > >What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues I >asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American >stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer" every >vicious, >vulgar, instructional word. > > "I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF > I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF > I'M ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF > I'M ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF..." > It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But >trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. >TheTime/Warner >executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They >hated me for that. > Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist >filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year old nieces of Al >and >Tipper Gore. > > "SHE PUSHED HER BUTT AGAINST MY ...." Well, I won't do to you here what >I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I >read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said "We can't print >that." >"I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner's selling it." Two months later, >Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another >film by Warners, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience >means you must be willing to act, not just talk. > > When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself ... jam the >switchboard of the district attorney's office. When your university is >pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with >honors ... choke the halls of the board of regents. > > When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and >gets hauled into court for sexual harassment ... march on that school and >block its doorways. When someone you elected is seduced by political >power and betrays you petition them, oust them, banish them. > > When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy >Christians holding a cross as it did last month ... boycott their >magazine and the products it advertises. So that this nation may long >endure, I >urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of >history that freed exiles, >founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused >rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country. > >If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree. Thank you. > > Charlton was a gunner on a B-25 Mitchell bomber in WW II. Bet you >haven't seen this speech in the press, certaintly not prominently. ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. 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