---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1999 08:36:29 -0800
Subject: FW: Heston on The State of Things


 Subject: 	Heston on The State of Things
 
 
 Charlton Heston, speaking on 'Winning the Cultural War'
 Tuesday, February 16, 7:30 pm, Ames Courtroom, Austin Hall.
 
 Sponsored by the Harvard Law School Forum, a student organization at 
Harvard Law School. For almost 50 years, the Forum has been bringing to 
HLS noteworthy individuals from all fields to engage in exciting and 
wide-ranging exchanges of ideas. Forum programs are open to the public 
and generally consist of a speech or panel discussion followed by a 
question-and-answer session.
 
 
 Mr. Heston
 
 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.)
 
 It's just that there always seems 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." 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 lives 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 a little. 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 like that? 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 country, 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 the 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 (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 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? That scares me to death. 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 res