This should be required ready for anyone who ever picked up a gun, or took a kid hunting or professed to be an American of free birthright...

It may very well be the greatest speech of our time....

Anybody know where we can get the text?

Ray, Very true. It was certainly a great speech.
I received a copy of the speech right after it was given from a friend. Very eloquent. Chuck went up a couple of notches in my book that day not that I didnt respect him already. Stupid question time. I have a 458 WM that I got from Chad Torres along with the extras. If I decide to open it up should it be a Lott or what? It is to be my Buff gun. I dont plan on it going to Africa this trip as it at least for now is plains game only. That is unless I find a really good deal for Sept. Im planning on taking the 300 WM and the 376 Steyr. Any sugesstions or comments would be welcome.

[ 07-02-2002, 20:03: Message edited by: Mike Smith ]

Here you go,

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 tho ught ... 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 th at 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 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 apo logize 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 researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they’ll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermi ne 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? Democracy is dialogue!

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 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 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 left their mark 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 sell ing 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 f ew great men, by God’s grace, built this country.

If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.

Thank you.

No truer words have ever been spoken of todays times in America.

The NRA needs a 10,000,000 more just like Chuck.

Great Speech!

I had read Mr Heston's speech at Oxford in Guns and Ammo some years ago, but this one was even more magnificent! Japan has a tradition of nominating eminent people as living treasures - I hope that your great nation (this is for the Americans here) does the same to Mr Heston.

Sure wish he was CANADIAN !!!------ herb

Once again,

The Dictatorship of Decorum
Who will demand an end to England anti-gun fiasco?
By Charlton Heston


Last November, Oxford University invited NRA President Charlton Heston to address the gun debate in a speech to its students. In the following excerpts from that speech, Mr. Heston calls on Britons to face up to the failure of their anti-gun laws and to consider the value of the right to self-defense, a fundamental natural right that has long been denied to the English.
"Since you banned all lawfully-owned handguns in 1997 and then rounded them up and sent them off to the smelters, gun crime has gone up. Last month the London Sunday Times reported it was up 10 percent in just the last year. Attempted homicides are up 15 percent. And ‘violence against the person involving firearms’ has increased an average of 11 percent per year for the past six years straight.

"That means when you leave here tonight, your chances of being shot, robbed, raped or assaulted at gunpoint are about 65 percent higher than they were in 1993.

For all its pomp and circumstance, is this gun ban really working? Let’s see who it affects.

"Britain’s Olympic shooting competitors must now leave Britain to practice overseas. Your target shooters, collectors and lawful owners dutifully handed in their guns to be melted down. But what of the drug thugs who’ve turned Nottingham, Birmingham, Liverpool and Leeds into battle zones? They haven’t paid much attention to your laws.

"So now in Nottinghamshire, police are carrying Walther pistols and 9mm submachine guns on their nightly patrols. Before you gasp and fretfully fan your noses, ask yourself why crime is on the rise. Because you need more new laws? Or because you need to enforce the laws you have?

"Do you need to make it illegal, say, to gun down a Crimewatch TV reporter as she stands on her doorstep—as happened last year? Or do you need to arrest and prosecute the thugs who roam the streets of Manchester wearing bulletproof body armor and packing Mac-10s?

"The answer ought to be obvious. Yet now in Parliament they’re talking about new shotgun laws. Interest groups want to make it illegal for a father to let his 15-year-old son even touch one of his shotguns. And the press is putting its predictable spin on the issue, as if shotguns and hunters had even the remotest relation to crime on England’s streets. Where’s the public outcry for zero tolerance and 100 percent prosecution of criminals who use guns?

"Eighty years ago, England effectively had no anti-gun laws at all and gun crime was statistically insignificant. Since then, as one anti-gun law after another has sailed through Parliament, gun crime has steadily grown worse. In 1971, former police superintendent Colin Greenwood said, ‘One is forced to the rather startling conclusion that the use of firearms in crime was very much less when there were no controls of any sort.’

"The mere presence of guns doesn’t and can’t cause crime. One of your countrymen, Albie Fox from Anglesey, is a former competitive pistol shooter who’s considering running for Parliament. He talked last week about pistol tournaments where he’s seen 2,000 shooters who had about six pistols each. That’s 12,000 pistols on the premises. How many police did they need for security? Two. Go to any football game in Great Britain and you’ll find hundreds of policemen trying to hold down the fort.

"Please don’t misunderstand my motive. I’m not here to find vicarious vindication in the failure of your gun bans. My purpose isn’t to sell you on self-defense or even to convince you to roll back your laws. Your gun laws are your business, not mine. But I ask you to think about your business with an open mind.

"You must accept that yours is a society where the State is sovereign, and where the individual citizen’s status hasn’t advanced significantly since the days of the serfs. You must accept your Prime Ministers, who call elections whenever and as often as they want. You must accept the ‘stealth taxes’ and coercion and arrogance of unchecked power.

"You must live with the idea that you live at the convenience and discretion of the Crown. But you don’t have to conclude that such a society, which denies the God-given right to self-preservation, is morally superior.

"This great land may be the birthplace of the Magna Carta and the freedoms it recognizes. But of all the English-speaking nations in the world, only one nation—the United States—had the guts and good sense to say not just no but hell no to the idea that rights are doled out by the government to the people, not the other way around. Thank God we did.

"Two weeks ago, a police constable in the West Side of London—an authorized firearms inspector—said he didn’t think England’s handgun ban had any effect at all. He said he didn’t think it was meant to, calling it ‘pure politics.’ When we asked to quote him on that, he backed off and said he could lose his job for speaking his mind.

"On this issue, England must no longer labor under some dictatorship of decorum. Call it genteel, call it civilized, call it what you will. When it imperils hearth and home, it’s nothing but cultural cowardice, a subtle form of surrender, both to the criminals and to the cops.

"Who among you will come forward to say that the gun bans aren’t working? Who will stand up and demand that if Tony Blair can have his bodyguards and the police are allowed to defend themselves, then so, too, should the people?

I urge you to shake off the ancient yoke of vassals and serfs and try a little American rebellion on for size. Write the essay or give the lecture or permit the discussion that provokes an honest assessment of what human freedom should mean in 21st Century England.

"Turn the world upside down, as my ancestors did in 1776, when they said that government gets its permission from the people, not the other way around. Then, accept the costs and thank God for the benefits of this simple idea called freedom."

Does anybody know how I can copy this speach without copying the whole damn string?

In the system I have (Windows, & Microsoft Explorer), I just use my mouse and left-click while wiping it across everything I want to copy. Let go of the left-click when I've got it (it will then look "selected"), and go to Edit, Copy. Then open a Word document and Edit, Paste it in. You could probably paste it into an e-mail, but it is usually easier to control page setup and everything else in Word than in most e-mail systems.

How can you not respect the guy? Not only eloquent but bitingly to the point.

A round of applause for Critrchik!!!

You are an asset to the forum, and a credit to your country and your gender.

Elmo

Well, I wasn't going to contribute... but WTF, I will.

I like Chuck. I like him a lot. Always have, ever since I was a kid. Only "big name" white guy standing up there with MLK, Jr., at the Lincoln Memorial. White guys hanging out with black guys wasn't real popular then, especially "big name" white guys hanging out with "big name" black guys. Chuck said "screw it" and did what he felt was right in his heart. I love a man who follows his convictions, public-at-large be damned.

Now, I know... some people give Chuck a lot of s**t lately, about this or that. Maybe he's not the sharpest tack in the pile anymore, but Jesus H. Christ, he's getting on in years! Just how sharp do you think YOU folks will be when you're his age??? So what if he isn't the smoothest "interviewee" on "The Today Show" with "Commie Couric" et al? Big ca-ca. How smooth are YOU on national television, without cue cards and rehearsed questions? Give the guy a break. At least he's on OUR side. Maybe he doesn't take a stand in exactly the same way we would on things... but again, at least he's on OUR side.

Do all of you know he openly screwed his career in the name of righteousness? Remember that "cop killer" song that was cut by a recording company owned by Warner Records? Do you know who employed him? "Warner." He got some fancy-a** award, got up to make his speech, and took the occasion to openly criticize Warner and all those involved for cutting that record. Maybe you folks haven't noticed, but ol' Chuck hasn't worked a whole Hell of a lot since then. A bit part here, a bit part there... that's it. Don't kid yourself that "he doesn't need the money." Hell, we can ALL use the money. No, he knew what would happen, and it did... but he stuck to his guns and said his peace, and I respect that. I don't know of too many guys who have openly cut their own throats, with regard to their careers, in the name of righteousness.

Chuck is a man of conviction and, for the most part, he's done pretty well by the American gun owner. I wish him Godspeed.

Russ

[ 07-03-2002, 07:12: Message edited by: Russell E. Taylor ]

Russ, Well said. Im in total agreement with you on this one.

Russell,
One of the wonderful things about Mr. Heston is the legacy he has left in the quality of films he has made. Many with great social messages that seem to be lacking in films today. My personal favorite is " The Mountain Men " which he did with another of my old guy favorites Brian Kieth. "Take me Bill Tyler, take me".
Films like The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Soylent Green and The Planet of the Apes will live forever. Interesting that a true social pioneer like Charlton Heston is disrespected by others in Hollywood when Mr. Hestons films say so much more than any of them ever have.
Perhaps it's because Mr. Hestons films have reflected on the human condition as opposed to partisanship.

Mike,
I just received and email from a PH in the Doma big 5 area and he has some late season Buffalo and elephant at very very cheap prices...I don't know him personally but I could probably get you a Buffal for about $5,000. all inclusive from him in Sept...or an elephant for $13,000. as long as you understand I don't know the guy but I could check him out if anyone is interrested...

Oops, forgot to answer your other question...Yes, I would go with the 458 Lott as I believe it is the most practical.

Pecos,
some years ago when that anti-gun voice that Turdy Blair probably refers to for comfort, The Economist, ran a particularly anti gun piece after Dunblane, it was little more than a personal attack on Mr Heston. I sent them an e-mail telling them that as head of the NRA, Charlton Heston had more fans than their magazine had readers. I also reminded them that a few weeks prior to that stinking personal attack, they had carried a leader that tried to explain why Economists should not try to be policy makers and why their tribe get things so wrong so often. Of course, they didn't publish my letter, though, to their credit, they published one written by someone from JPFO. I have nothing against economists as a profession, but this spokespiece for that profession which aspires to tell the whole world what it should do, is anti gun to the core and is one example of how the anti gun lobby tries to get it's way by hook or crook. Charlton Heston, from both his speeches (yes, thank you Critr Chik - we won't know how to thank you enough for putting both speeches on the forum) is a shining example of the basic decency that I associate with all gun owners. We are good people wherever we are and we need to stick together to fight the anti-gunners' nefarious designs.

Heston is a shining light in a rapidly approaching sea of darkness. My own contributions are much , much smaller but I'll say this ; The only two things that guide my actions as an LEO is that US Constitution that was written several hundred years ago and the reflection I see in the mirror every morning.

And if these greasy Liberal Poloticians, and their minions, dont like it I'll spit in their eye and tell them to stick this tin star up their ass's...........shoot straight and often.....................J

CritrChik,

I know this is asking a lot, sorry. I can't seem to be able to save the text without saving the whole string. Would you mind emailing me the text of the speaches? It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance, Patrick

Russell,

My last name is Gobbi. My nickname is "Gob". My handle isn't meant to be offensive or disrepectfull, only humorous.

Patrick

Mr. Gobbi:

Fair enough. I do see the humor.

Russ