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 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 sure thank the 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 ís 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.
Charlton Heston's Keynote Address at the Free Congress
Foundation's 20th Anniversary Gala
Charlton Heston was honored to have Mr. Charlton Heston as the keynote speaker at its
20th Anniversary Gala on December 20, 1997. The
address was broadcast live on America's Voice Network, and is available
by calling our order line toll free at: 1 (800)
638-0600. For more information on the Free Congress Foundation and
it's television programming and public policy centers,
go to our homepage . What an honor it is to address the Free Congress
Foundation. At a glance "Free" reads as a verb rather
than an adjective. "Free Congress." Not a bad directive for Mr. Clinton.
Anyway... I like it when the party of Lincoln honors
our free heritage. This nation has been blessed by the minds and mettle
of many good people, and indeed Abe was among the
best. A man of great moral character, a trait often lacking among our
leaders. This is disturbing, but not without remedy. One
good election can correct such ills. Above all, I hope those of us
gathered here tonight have more in common with Mr.
Lincoln than just party affiliation. Better that we grasp a common
vision than simply wear the cloak. Even our President
pretends to be a conservative when it suits him. We must be more than
that. I know… it’s not easy. Imagine being point man
for the National Rifle Association, preserving the right to keep and
bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I
serve… as a moving target for pundits who’ve called me everything from
"ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile
and crazy old man." Maybe that comes with the territory. But as I have
stood in the crosshairs of those who aim at Second
Amendment freedom, I have realized that guns are not the only issue,
and I am not the only target. It is much, much bigger than
that – which is what I want to talk to you about today. I have come
to realize that a cultural war is raging across our
land…storming our values, assaulting our freedoms, killing our self-confidence
in who we are and what we believe. How
many of you own a gun? A show of hands maybe? How many own two or more
guns? Thank you. I wonder – how many of
you own guns but chose not to raise your hand? How many of you considered
revealing your conviction about a constitutional
right, but then thought better of it? Then you are a victim of the
cultural war. You are a casualty of the cultural warfare being
waged against traditional American freedom of beliefs and ideas. Now
maybe you don’t care one way or the other about
owning a gun. But I could’ve asked for a show of hands of Pentecostal
Christians, or pro-lifers, or right-to-workers, or
Promise Keepers, or school voucher-ers, and the result would be the
same. What if the same question were asked at your
PTA meeting? Would you raise your hand if Dan Rather were in the back
of the room with a film crew? See? You have been
assaulted and robbed of the courage of your convictions. Your pride
in who you are and what you believe, has been
ridiculed, ransacked and plundered. It may be a war without bullets
or bloodshed, but with just as much liberty lost. You and
your country are less free. And you are not inconsequential people!
You in this room, whom many would say are among the
most powerful people on earth, you are shamed into silence! Because
you choose to own guns – affirmed by no less than the
Bill of Rights. But you embrace a view at odds with the cultural warlords.
If that is the outcome of cultural war, and you are
victims, I can only ask the gravely obvious question: What’ll become
of the right itself? Or other rights not deemed
acceptable by the thought police? What other truth in your heart will
you disavow with your hand? I remember when
European Jews feared to admit their faith. The Nazis forced them to
wear yellow stars as identity badges. It worked. So –
what color star will the pin on gun owners’ chests? How will the self-styled
elite tag us? There may not be a Gestapo officer
on every street corner, but the influence on our culture is just as
pervasive. Now, I am not really here to talk about the Second
Amendment of the NRA, but the gun issue clearly brings into focus the
warfare that’s going on. Rank-and-file Americans
wake up every morning, increasingly bewildered and confused at why
their views make them lesser citizens. After enough
breakfast-table TV hyping tattooed sex-slaves on the next Rikki Lake,
enough gun-glutted movies and tabloid shows, enough
revisionist history books and prime-time ridicule of religion, enough
of the TV anchor who cocks her head, clucks her tongue
and sighs about guns causing crime and finally the message gets through:
Heaven help the God-fearing, law-abiding,
Caucasian, middle class, Protestant, or—even worse— admitted heterosexual,
gun-owning or—even
worse—NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff, or—even worse—male
working stiff, because not only don’t you count,
you’re a downright obstacle to social progress. Your tax dollars may
be just as delightfully green as you hand them over, but
your voice deserves a lower decibel level, your opinion is less enlightened,
your media access is insignificant. And frankly,
mister, you need to wake up, wise up and learn a little something about
your new America… and until you do, would you
mind shutting up? That’s why you didn’t raise your hand. That’s how
cultural war works. And you are losing. That’s what
happens when a generation of media, educators, entertainers and politicians,
led by a willing president, decide the America
they were born into isn’t good enough any more. So they contrive to
change it through the cultural warfare of class
distinction. Ask the Romans if powerful nations have ever fallen as
a result of cultural division. There are ruins around the
world that were once the smug centers of small-minded, arrogant elitism.
It appears that rather than evaporate in the flash of a
split atom, we may succumb to a divided culture. Although my years
are long, I was not on hand to help pen the Bill of
Rights. And popular assumptions aside, the same goes for the Ten Commandments.
Yet as an American and as a man who
believes in God’s almighty presence, I treasure both. The Constitution
was handed down to guide us by a bunch of wise old
dead white guys who invented our country. Now some flinch when I say
that. Why? It’s true… they were white guys. So were
most of the guys that died in Lincoln’s name opposing slavery in the
1860s. So why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why
is "Hispanic pride" or "black pride" a good thing, while "white pride"
conjures shaved heads and white hoods? Why was the
Million Man March on Washington celebrated as progress, while the Promise
Keepers March on Washington was greeted
with suspicion and ridicule? I’ll tell you why: Cultural warfare. Now,
Chuck Heston can get away with saying I’m proud of
those wise old dead white guys because Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan
know I fought in their cultural war. I was one of
the first white soldiers in the civil rights movement, long before
it was fashionable. In 1963 I marched on Washington with
Dr. Martin Luther King to uphold the Bill of Rights. As vice-president
of the NRA I am doing the same thing. But you don’t
see many other Hollywood luminaries speaking out on this, do you? It’s
not because there aren’t any. It’s because they can’t
afford the heat. They dare not speak up for fear of CNN or the IRS
or SAG or ATF or NBC or even W-J-C. It saps the
strength of our country when the personal price is simply too high
to stand up for what you believe in. Today, speaking with
the courage of your conviction can be so costly, the price of principle
can be so high, that legislators won’t lead and citizens
can’t follow, and so there is no army to fight back. That’s cultural
warfare. For instance: It’s plain that our Constitution
guarantees law-abiding citizens the right to own a firearm. But if
I stand up and say so, why is the media assault on me such a
slashing, sinister brand of derision filled with hate? Because Bill
Clinton’s cultural warriors want a penitent cleansing of
firearms, as if millions of lawful gun owners should genuflect in shame
and seek absolution by surrendering their guns. That’s
what is now literally underway in England and Australia. Lines of submissive
citizens, threatened with imprisonment, are
bitterly surrendering family heirlooms, guns that won their freedom,
to the blast furnace. If that fact does not unsettle you, then
you are already anesthetized, a ready victim of the cultural war. You
know that I stand first in line in defense for free speech.
But those who speak against the perverted and profane should be given
as much due as those who profit by it. You also know
I welcome cultural diversity. But those who choose to live on the fringe
should not tear apart the seams that secure the fabric
of our society. I’ve earned a fine and rewarding living in the motion
picture industry, yet increasingly I find myself
embarrassed by the dearth of conscience that drives the world’s most
influential art form. And I am an example of what a
lonely undertaking it can be. Nobody opposed the obscene rapper Ice-T
until I stood at Time-Warner’s stockholders meeting
and was ridiculed by its president for wanting to take the floor to
read Ice-T’s lyrics. Since I held several hundred shares of
stock he had no choice. Though the media were barred, I read those
lyrics to a stunned audience of average American
people… shocked at lyrics that advocating killing cops, sexually abusing
women, and raping the nieces of our
Vice-President. The good guys won that time: Time-Warner fired Ice-T.
The gay and lesbian movement is another good
example. Many homosexuals are hugely talented artists and executives…
also dear friends. I don’t despise their lifestyle,
though I don’t share it. As long as gay and lesbian Americans are as
productive, law-abiding and private as the rest of us, I
think America owes them absolute tolerance. It’s the right thing to
do. On the other hand, I find my blood pressure rising
when Clinton’s cultural shock troops participate in gay-rights fundraisers
but boycott gun-rights fundraisers… and then claim
it’s time to place homosexual men in tents with Boy Scouts, and suggest
that sperm donor babies born into lesbian
relationships are somehow better served and more loved. Such demands
have nothing to do with equality. They’re about the
currency of cultural war – money and votes – and the Clinton camp will
let anyone in the tent if there’s a donkey on the hat, a
check in the mail or some yen in the fortune cookie. Mainstream America
is counting on you to draw your sword and fight for
them. These people have precious little time and resources to battle
misguided Cinderella attitudes, the fringe propaganda of
the homosexual coalition, the feminists who preach that it is a divine
duty for women to hate men, blacks who raise a militant
fist with one hand while they seek preference with the other, and all
the New-Age apologists for juvenile crime, who see
roving gangs as a means of youthful expression, sex as a means of adolescent
merchandizing, violence as a form of
entertainment for impressionable minds, and gun bans as a means to
Lord-knows-what. We have reached that point in time
when our national social policy originates on Oprah. I say it’s time
to pull the plug. Americans should not have to go to war
every morning for their values. They already go to war for their families.
They fight to hold down a job, raise responsible
kids, make their payments, keep gas in the car, put food on the table
and clothes on their backs, and still save a little to live
their final days in dignity. They prefer the America they built – where
you could pray without feeling naïve, love without
being kinky, sing without profanity, be white without feeling guilty,
own a gun without shame, and raise your hand without
apology. They are the critical masses who find themselves under siege
and long for you to get some guts, stand on principle
and lead them to victory in this cultural war. Now if this all sounds
a little Mosaic, the punchline of my sermon is as
elementary as the Golden Rule: In a cultural war, triumph belongs to
those who arm themselves with pride in who they are
and then do the right thing. Not the most expedient thing, not what’ll
sell, not the politically correct thing, but the right thing.
And you know what? Everybody already knows what the right thing is.
You and I and President Clinton, even Ice-T, we all
know. It’s easy. You say wait a minute, you take a long look in the
mirror, then into the eyes of your kids or grandkids, and
you’ll know what’s right. Don’t run for cover when the cultural cannons
roar. Remember who you are and what you believe,
and then raise you hand, stand up, and speak out. Don’t be shamed or
startled into lockstep conformity by seemingly powerful
people. The maintenance of a free nation is a long, slow, steady process.
And it’s in your hands. Yes, we can have rules and
still have rebels – that’s democracy. But as leaders you must do as
Lincoln would do, confronted with the stench of cultural
war: Do what’s right. As Mr. Lincoln said, "With firmness in the right,
as God gives us to see the right, let us finish the work
we are in… and then we shall save our country." Defeat the criminals
and their apologists, oust the biased and bigoted,
endure the undisciplined and unprincipled, but disavow the self-appointed
social engineers whose relentless arrogance fuels
this vicious war against so much we hold so dear. Do not yield, do
not divide, do not call truce. Be fair, but fight back. It’s
the same blueprint our founding fathers left to guide us. Our enemies
see it as the senile prattle of an archaic society. I still
honor it as the United States Constitution, and that timeless document
we call the Bill of Rights. Freedom is our fortune and
honor is our saving grace. Thank you.
