Subject: The New American Cultural War

In case you didn't see this, it's worth the read. You may not like some of the people named here, but for fairness sake, you need to hear what they have to say. For 50 years, the Harvard Law School Forum has been sponsoring speeches by luminaries ranging from Fidel Castro to Gerald Ford to Dr. Ruth. Sometimes the speeches have generated a bit of media coverage, sometimes not. But one given last month by Charlton Heston has taken on a life of its own. Heston, the
actor and conservative activist, delivered a stem-winder to about 200 listeners about "a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart." "He knew he was coming to a liberal environment, and clearly a group of his listeners was conservative and another was more liberal," said David Christopherson, president of the forum.
"About half respectfully challenged him during the questions. It generated a lot of debate around the campus. But what happened caught us off-guard." What happened was Rush Limbaugh's radio talk show. On March 15,
Limbaugh read the entire speech on the air, only to find himself bombarded with thousands of requests for a copy of it.
The same happened at Harvard Law. "We couldn't keep up with all the requests," said Mike Chmura at Harvard. "It really
didn't have legs and might have been forgotten if Mr. Limbaugh hadn't decided to deliver it."

'Winning the Cultural War' - Charlton Heston's Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum, Feb 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 repainted 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 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. 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'm sure, Lord, I 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 olumnist
Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired cause 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, 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 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.

He's a very intelligent man...

Good stuff, thanks for posting!!

This shouldn't fall to the bottom too fast!!

i don't know what the number of people who get infected by aids from their dentists is, but it is probably very very very low. and if a dentist tells his patients that he has aids, he will lose all his customers. and the odds of aids getting passed is probably almost non existent.

and cop killer by ice t is written about certain types of cops, not all of them. he said, got my headlights turned off in his song, but he also said fuck police brutality. in the ghetto, some of the cops are almost as bad as the criminals. remember ramparts, cops selling cocaine, beating citizens, killing people & planting guns, the song is probaly written for cops like that.

besides, heston is one to talk about how people aren't allowed free speech. he got ice t fired because he didn't like his song.
Ict t is just as pissed off about not having free speech as heston is. he wrote an entire book on the subject after cop killer was banned (thank god for napster)

I'D SURE AS HELL WANT TO KNOW...!!!

And if I quit going to that person for treatment, it wouldn't make me homophobic (IF...IF he/she were even gay), or unsympathetic to his virus/sickness...

I would not go because I play the odds...plain and simple! There would be more of a chance of me contracting the virus from HIM/HER, than it would from someone who is NOT infected...

A close example (I believe) is the laws passed after the little girl (can't remember her name for the life of me) was abducted and sexually assaulted and eventually killed by a man who HAD JUST RECENTLY been released from prison for sexual crimes...I know you've heard of that! Now, the chances, might be slim that a former offener will commit a crime (although they're logically NOT), but none-the-less, I WOULD WANT TO KNOW IF I LIVED IN THAT NEIGHBORHOOD, ESPECIALLY IF I HAD KIDS!!

Some of this stuff is just common sense...honestly put yourself in some of these positions and I gaurantee most of y'all WOULD NOT be so politically correct and liberal!!!

Again, this speech doesn't deserve to fall down to the bottom...

I'd really like to hear some others' opinions on this, especially the more opinionated members...Matt, Johnny, chesty, Big Buck, etc., etc.

I feel complete in being politically non-correct I hope this speech reminds people of
what our Vets have died for. Let's make sure
they did not die in vain. If we don't value freedom and liberty then they lost there lives for nothing.

YOUR FREEDOM AND YOUR LIBERTY TO DECIDE THE ISSUES FOR YOURSELF, THINK FOR YOURSELF. SCREW THE MEDIA AND THE PROPAGANDA THEY SPEW
OUT LIKE SO MUCH SEWAGE.

Sendin' it back up, I'd still like to hear from the bro's and bro-ettes I mentioned above...

I agree w/ Heston. I would add more, but he said it quite well on his own.

COME ON DAMN IT, SOMEONE ELSE GIVE ME SOME INSIGHT...AM I WAY OFF BASE HERE??? I THINK NOT...

if there is a reasonable chance of something bad happening than it is fair, but taking away the rights & exposing to humiliation an entire group of people because .001% do something wrong isn't fair.

good read...Heston got it dead on right.

Are you my twin brother (mentally speaking)? Damn, I love reading your posts because I would often say something very similar.

As for Heston, disguising discrimination in an American Flag of individual rights will not hide his blatant acceptance for censorship (which is okay because it is what he believes in).

quote:

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Originally posted by Joseph_stalin:

some of that is unfair.

i don't know what the number of people who get infected by aids from their dentists is, but it is probably very very very low. and if a dentist tells his patients that he has aids, he will lose all his customers. and the odds of aids getting passed is probably almost non existent.

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Are you implying that a Dentist infected with aids has the right to risk someone else's life without their consent or knowledge?? That is such a ridiculous proposition that I have to assume you are being facetious. Also, how is the probability of infection relevant?? If there is any possibility, no matter how small, one does not have the right to risk another person's life.

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need a lift?

quote:

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Originally posted by Zebo:
Would someone enlighten me as to the Megan Law?

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Zebo: All I could find was this article on it. Theres plenty more out there, but it bascily says that when a sex offender moves into the neighborhood that the community has to be notified.

[While versions of Megan's Law, under that name and others, exist in a number of states, this article is only discussing the current controversy in New Jersey]

Megan's Law, named for the 7-year-old New Jersey girl assaulted and killed by a convicted sex offender in 1994, is actually a series of notification and withholding-of-notification regulations: When a low-risk offender moves into a community, only the police can be notified, and they can't pass the information along to residents. For a moderate risk offender, certain school officials and organization leaders (the head of the local YMCA, Scout leaders) will be notified but again, the local residents don't have access to the information. When it's a high-risk offender, the entire neighborhood is notified, but that could be personal notification, flyers sent home with schoolchildren (I only recently found a notice tucked into my older son's notebook about last year's school Halloween party), or letters placed into mailboxes.

Some of these former offenders have been harassed or assaulted, in some cases their homes destroyed, by neighbors upset at their presence. This was hardly unanticipated, and supporters of the Law were always adamant that anybody who harms a "Megan's Law offender" be punished.

There were also warnings against spreading any information beyond those who had the "right" to have it, which never had a chance to be taken seriously: It's against human nature to keep information to ourselves, and it's against American nature to be told what you can't discuss -- especially when the issue is a sex offender living down the block: Anybody's inclination would be to spread the word as widely as possible, because no danger seems "low risk" when it concerns your children and the children of friends.

A U.S. District Court Judge is now reviewing at least 45 violations, including cases where the information has appeared on the front pages of local newspapers or tacked onto telephone poles. He's ordered the State Attorney General to review the guidelines, making them more strict if necessary, and said he'd be willing to stop notifications entirely (technically, he did rule that the notifications be stopped, but stayed his own decision pending an appeal by the Attorney General to the U.S. Court of Appeals).

1.Freedom of speech requires the one exercising it to be responsible. Ice T has the freedom of speech and it was not infringed upon. What he rapped about was child sodemy, and killing cops. Period, it was nothing more and nothing less.

That is an irresponsible use of your freedom of speech. Being a cop I found that the threats on our life went up dramatically when that song was in print and being aired. If anyone else had said I am gonna butt fuck a twelve year old girl or boy we wouldn't hesitate to fuck him up. Example on the elite board a few years back there were a lot of ass wipes wanting to do this and that advertise pictures and so on. We united and got rid of them.

As for other stuff brought out, isn't it funny how you can say black man and get fried because you didn't say African-American? Aren't you American? If you say you don't like the Jewish religion your anti-semetic? If I tell you I don't like your life style and don't want to hear about it I am an homophobe and so on...I am going to go out on limb here and say this.

Remember a few years ago when we had the MLK holiday shoved down our throats? Gov'ts were threatened with lawsuits if they did not observe this new holiday, we had to give up several long standing holidays, such as Washingtons birthday to fit this new pc holiday in place. Now, don't get me wrong he did do alot for civil rights, but to have a holiday for him ram rodded up our asses because he is black, (ooops, I mean African-American) is ridiculous.

If my doctor had aids and knew it and infected me I would hunt that piece of shit down and ... well you get the idea.

Yes we are being conditioned to accept pc at the expenxe of personal freedom. I am truly sad for the day when my kids are adults.

Remember, our freedoms are not free and come with awseome responsibility that we must use when exercising these freedoms.