We have had an actor as president before, he did fine. Some would
argue we have an actor as president now, he is doing fine. So why
not actor Charleton Heston? Here is a speech he made. Im not with
him on the god stuff, but the rest of it sounds about right:
Charlton Heston's Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum
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
repainted I'll do my best.
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 reconnect you with your own sense of liberty, of
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." 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....Some time back, 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.
a.. 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.
b. 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.
c. 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.
d. 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.
e. 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, DC
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: 1.. didn't know the meaning of niggardly, 2..
didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and 3.. 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 are 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 it 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, DC, 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 a cultural correctness with
massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous laws
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 Warner's, 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 disobedience's 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
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