This forum has the audacity to employ and validate free speech. It's members are are not following the "guidelines" to store up for three days. Next time you dare disobedience remember this...

"Winning The Cultural War" by Charlton Heston

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 whatis 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."

Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what 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 -- long 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 Jews 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. The Time/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.

-- Y2kDisobey (What?@disobey.com), March 25, 1999

Answers

This deserves to go down alongside Martin Luther King's "I have a Dream" speech and Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), March 25, 1999.

"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.

Damn. Charlton, you go boy! Thanks for the post, Disobey.

-- a (a@a.a), March 25, 1999.

I'd love to know how that speech was received by the audience.

-- Puddintame (dit@dot.com), March 25, 1999.

Would love to know how Mr. Heston feels about Y2K, or for that matter, Streisand (has she changed her tune on Bill?) or Martin Sheen - he's always been an activist. Oprah - we got a pretty good idea since she says she won't be on a plane anywhere near that time. Wonder how the boys that anchor the network news really feel about it and are they "preparing"? Wish I knew what Sam Donaldson knows or Kokie Roberts. OR Uncle Walter? They could all make a difference if they would do a little editorializing or ask the right questions out loud at a news conference. Guess our "little bug" is being wiped out by another tail wagging the dog - much to our detriment. That flea is gonna' get us...

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.net), March 25, 1999.

No one who is in the know who are public figures would divulge the truth or what they really think (Ophrah got sued for talking about the harmful effects of beef). They would be accused of creating PUBLIC PANIC! Perhaps these public figures believe that it's the governments responsibility to alert the public, afterall, the TV stars have their careers to think about, and it's public opinion that makes or breaks them.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), March 25, 1999.

Doesn't IceT have the right to say "If I had my way, I'd shoot every one of them, right in the f#%#^#% face!", when at the time his community was being shot to death by the LAPD?(and still is)

Doesn't T have the right to hurl the ultimate personal insult to the establishement,(Gore), who takes my money and his to arm the states with authority and equipment against us.

Doesn't Time/Warner have the right to sell a product whether I like it or not?

Do you really want us to flood establishments with complaints? Won't we give them more power to alienate one section of the herd from another, wich is exacly what "they" want, meaning here comes another special interest law, that creates another ecception to the previous rulling thats pissing off people.

If Dr. King were here I think his belief's would have progressed beyond color, into the class warfare that is taking place in our world today. Thats what this is, as long as the herd is busy with IceT, the 8 yr old, the petition, the Time covers, the football game, y2k, the communist, the gays, the drugs, the job, etc.., "they" continue to pass legislation wich empowers the corp. to take more from the bottom 2/3 of the population and place it into the hands of the top 1/3.

I do agree with your argument to get involved, but to follow Ghandi is doing exacly what they want. It will only work if the whole world does it, anything else is just special interst and is what the root of the whole problem seems to be.

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@aol.com), March 26, 1999.

R. Wright,

If good ole boys from Alabammy came out wit' a record titled Nigger Killer would this be acceptable? What about Kill the Jews? We have a right to boycott this stuff. Do you want your kid walking around singing the lyrics to Cop Killer? I don't feel this is means to achieve racial harmony(or bring classes closer together) & right the injustices however tragic.

Why not sing a song called Get Your Diploma?

Education is the only answer.

-- Martin Luther King Jr. (spinning@mygrave.com), March 26, 1999.

Nah!, education sucks too. Learning is perhaps THE answer, but schools aren't the way to do it. Schools teach conformity and mental docility before all else. C.H.'s speech is pretty damn good. Political correctness is petty and insidious, but there are much bigger fish to fry.

-- humptydumpty (no.6@thevillage.com), March 26, 1999.

Sir,

If you truly are who you say, I'm very honored by your resoponse.

I agree, education is the answer. Check out Znet for a start. Like I said I don't think it's about the insults and threats from the gen. pop., but a constant class warfare that the fcc will not allow reporting on. If something does come out, it impicates few, and the upper echelon goes on it's greedy way.

If the "good ole boys" put out that kind of thinking, my daughters will feel the same thing as they thought when we listened to the IceT crap. They wouldn't agree, not being taught it, and certainly would look for reasons for such opinions.

How would we get "educated", if we boycott universities? How would we get good jobs without certifications? Who would be the select group that make the rules on limits of speech? (fcc allready does) Sounds too socialist to me. I don't think I can sit when that one happens. How about we boycott the IRS? Lets just disobey as urged. Do you think we'll even have the freedom to speak in the proper manner then?

-- R. Wright (blaklodg@aol.com), March 26, 1999.

How would we get good jobs without certifications?

How can you call them good jobs OR good certifications when the standard of acceptance is lowered to admit or promote people based on race - not accomplishment or actual performance standards?

Mr. K
***all for high standards for everyone. If you ain't got the ingredients, you can't bake the cake...***

-- Mr. Kennedy (y2kPCfixes@MotivatedSeller.com), March 26, 1999.

Exercise your freedom. Break a law today.

-- A (A@AisA.com), March 27, 1999.

Thank you Y2KDisobey, That was such a refreshing change from the garbage that seems to be heaped on this forum by such lumanaries as Y2KPro and other trolls.

That speech is as inspirational as Ayn Rand's speech to the graduating class at West Point, Who Needs Philosophy?

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), March 28, 1999.

I winced at the lines that said to respond. How many times do we challenge the stuff that makes us shake our heads in disbelief? I'm guilty of complacency. It's (political correctness) being forced down our throats because we're standing here with our mouths open.

-- margie mason (mar3mike@aol.com), March 28, 1999.