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