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andrewduckerMuch though my feelings about gun control disagree with his, I'm very impressed with this speech by Charlton Heston at Harvard.
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 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 Vietnam.
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 lack.
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 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.
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 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 Vietnam.
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 lack.
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 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.
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no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 02:23 am (UTC)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.
Approximately one in 7 women is raped as an adult (child sexual abuse is frighteningly common for both girls and boys). Almost all of these rapes are by acquaintances, often in date-rape situations, and in some cases the man doesn't consider it rape. These rules are extreme, but perhaps they will teach men valuable lessons that will reduce the figures below 15%.
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.
As both a magician and a student of the social sciences, names have power. Considering changing potentially offensive names is far better than not. otherwise, we'd still have restaurants in the US called Sambos (with pictures of "little black sambo" all over the walls) - I saw one of the restaurants in the mid 70s in Roanoke VA. Without a concern for names, such places would still exist.
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.
A decision that I wholeheartedly applaud and consider anyone who opposes this to be a hateful bigot.
Heston is also an insane nut about guns - I oppose banning anything w/o a good reason, but the number of firearms deaths in the US are quite high and many NRA members (including Heston) claim that guns will keep them safe from crime (a dubious assertion, especially since violent crime would almost certainly decline if the US had strict gun control) and that gun ownership will keep the US safe from tyranny (an idea that I find ludicrously silly). I do my best to ignore him.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 02:32 am (UTC)The second case - he clearly states that the people who are ostensibly being protected are actually in favour of the name.
I'm certainly in favour of the right of transvestites (and indeed anyone else) to be allowed to wear anything they like on the job (unless there's a defined uniform for the job, in which case they should be followeing the same rules as everyone else). I'm slightly confused about the transsexual toilets bit - are they saying that there ought to be toilets for males, females and pre-op transexuals? Or that transexuals should be allowed to use the toilets of the gender that they are going to be? It sounds like a difficult situation and I'm not sure there's a clear cut answer.
The use of the word niggardly, was, I think the largest one that got to me. I can understand the initial fuss from ignorant people - but for someone to resign over using the word strikes me as being from through madness and out the other side.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 03:55 am (UTC)It might get some guys used to asking permission rather than just assuming it. Until sexual mores change significantly, that sort of training seems like a good idea for way too many guys. What we really need is some serious studies to find out what would sorts of rules or education campaigns would actually help this problem, which is sadly something that most right-wingers oppose and few liberals are willing to fight for.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 04:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 04:16 am (UTC)This is a brilliant, impashioned speech - I wish I'd been there. I'm sure the reaction he got from the students would have been quite vociferious.
Firstly, I don't think we should pick each of his 'examples', and try an poke holes in them. To take bits and pieces of his, or anyone's elses, speech and blow them out of proportion is to lose the context of the speech as a whole, and do a dis-service to the speaker. The context of the speech is simple - PC has gone too far, and is threatening personal liberties. You don't have to like the man, or his beliefs on gun-control, to agree with that sentiment. You don't have to agree with the sentiment either, but prejudice against a person should not automatically prejudice you against all beliefs they have.
PC has gone mad. Initially it was about teaching people respect - which is what is important. However, that can't be done by banning words, or butchering the English language. It can't be done by repressive laws, that supress the rights of people far beyond reason. It can't be done by discriminatory laws, that protect the rights of 'minority' groups far more than the rights of people who are not so easily categorised are protected.
New words will become common-place over the old - do we continue to ban words until we have none left? Allowing governments to start supressing basic human rights allows them far too much power - do we give the people in power carte blanche to 'ban' anything they disagree with? Pro-minority laws often grant greater-than-average rights to groups of people selected as 'minority' - positive discrimination is on the increase, with no end in sight. Apar from anything else, all positive discrimination does is engender spite and a lack of tolerance.
PC has lost it's way. Where it should be about teaching the rights of individuals, and promoting respect of your fellow man, it's become corrupted (primarily) by America's litigation-culture, where people who perceived themselves as part of a minority group 'done wrong', were now empowered to sue for compensation. As a result, there is now a culture of fear permeating society, where people are scared to speak up for something, anything, that they perceive to be wrong for fear of being labeled bigot/sexist/racist/you-name-it, and taken to court over it. The example above, of the use of the word "niggardly", is a prime example of that. That should make it blatantly obvious to us all that something is wrong, that PC isn't meeting it's aims, that innocent people are being hurt by this blind acceptance of what certain people in power deem to be OK or not.
If find it laughable (and I'm sorry if this offends, but I do) that any speech so clearly about standing up to oppression, and for personal liberties, and questioning the relentless onslaught of political-correctness and what it's actually trying to achieve, is labeled as "right wing". Sad, too.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 04:31 am (UTC)It's pretty much impossible to "ban words", but it is possible to ban them in a given context - say, a professional working environment, or government-produced documents. In fact, it's downright common. For example, my starting a work-related letter with "yo, motherfuckers" would probably result in my getting fired, and wouldn't result in a whole lot of people defending my human right to act like an offensive fuckwit in a work context. The bases we use for those codes of practice vary and change, but it's wrong to claim that "political correctness" is the first attempt to do it. It's also pretty unlikely that you can't think of any good reason to do it.
Allowing governments to start supressing basic human rights allows them far too much power - do we give the people in power carte blanche to 'ban' anything they disagree with?
What's the "basic human right" you're talking about, here? The right to do exactly as you please in all contexts? That's not in the UN declaration on my wall.
Pro-minority laws often grant greater-than-average rights to groups of people selected as 'minority' - positive discrimination is on the increase, with no end in sight.
"Often"? Can you give examples? Of course, I live in a country without a single example of a "pro-minority" law, so perhaps I'm missing something. We do have some laws making it illegal to discriminate in certain contexts on certain grounds (and none of these make it legal to favour either the minority or the majority).
Apar from anything else, all positive discrimination does is engender spite and a lack of tolerance.
Again, I'd like to see the evidence. If you're talking about, say, US affirmative action in college admissions, it's also "engendered" several more ethnic minority college graduates, so it's had outcomes other than "engendering spite", whether you like those outcomes or not.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 07:32 am (UTC)And as for the speech, it's not just about the tyranny of PC. There is an agenda here, and I think you should take account of that agenda before laughing at other people who do.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 08:03 am (UTC)Heron, if you did take that as an insult, I apologise. I could have written it better.
While I appreciate the agenda, again, the sentiment of the speech is laudible - and is definitely not 'right wing'. Though Heron's bit was well written, the impression it gave me was that he labeled the entire speech as 'right wing' partly because it was Chuck Heston that made it, and parly because of the comment on transvestites. While I think Chuck should have left that comment out, and I certainly don't agree with the 'dress' issue (the toilets issue is a little shaky), I don't think the whole of the speech can be labeled as 'right wing ramblings' because of that. Encouraging students to stand up for what they believe in, and encourage free thinking (regardless of hidden-agenda), is the exact opposite of my understanding of 'right wing'.
Discounting a belief because of how someone further's their own agenda through it is precarious ground. I strongly disagreed with Blair/Bush's private agendas re: the removal of Saddam Hussein, but I definitely thought he should be removed.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 12:24 pm (UTC)I labeled it right-wing because it is. The identity of the speaker is irrelevant, it's exactly the same idiotic crap that ultra-conservatives all over the US whine about continuously in their attempts to eliminate all laws protecting minorities or otherwise prohibiting these right-wingers from doing whatever the hell they want to. He's not encouraging free-thinking, he's encouraging mockery of people with different views, that's intolerance, not freedom.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 02:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 12:19 pm (UTC)Foolishly claiming that "PC has gone mad" is claiming that the left currently has some degree of control over public discourse in the US. It doesn't, neo-conservatives and their allies control discourse here to a truly frightening degree, if you do not see this you're blind. PC is not a threat to freedom in the US, but the laws (Patriot I and the proposed Patriot II being excellent examples) is. Interestingly, the NRA supports such laws as being "tough on terrorists".
Finally, the concerns motivating the sorts of actions Heston so blithely dismisses are very real
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 12:32 pm (UTC)I've never seen this be the case in the US, especially not now. Anti-discrimination laws are under continual attack and often lose. The affirmitive action laws in California universities lost a few years ago and the result was signicantly fewer minorities in California universities, which is exactly what the people attacking these laws want.
- positive discrimination is on the increase, with no end in sight. Apar from anything else, all positive discrimination does is engender spite and a lack of tolerance.
I've never heard the term "postive discrimination" before, but assuming that it means the same thing as reverse discrmination (ie favoring an otherwise oppressed minority group over the majority), legally and practically is largely a myth, these laws do not discrminate against whites. Also, what affirmitive action laws that exist in the US are rapidly being dismantled in the courts and by the legislature.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 02:52 pm (UTC)We have "positive action" as opposed to "affirmitive action", and "positive discrimination" as opposed to "reverse discrimination".
In the UK, we now have such things as 'social weightings' for College/University applications. Meaning that a pupil of a school in a less 'advantaged' area who got straight Bs will gain access to a University place over a pupil in a more 'advantaged' area who got straight As. There are obviously various concerns here, but what can't be denied is that the pupil who must still have worked his butt off to get straight As is now being discriminated against. This legislation was brought in as government studies showed a significant number of students come from 'money' backgrounds. Instead of addressing this through the main cause, which is the increase in the cost to put a student through University, they brought in this absurd rule instead.
I have to be honest, I don't know how things are in the US. In the UK, legislation demands that a certain number of disabled applicants MUST be interviewed for a job. This is regardless of circumstances, experience, or qualification. The legislation simply says that if you receive applications from disabled people, a certain amount MUST be interviewed to meet certain 'equality' criteria. They might be weak applicants, and this might be a waste of the prospective employers time and resources, but they must be interviewed. I strongly object to this. People should be given opportunities based on their strengths, not their minority group.
Euro-nuts are taking this further. It will soon be possible for blind people to sue companies whos web-sites aren't accessable to them. Now, while I sympathise that blind people are very disadvantaged when it comes to the net, and responsible companies should do what they can to make it easier for them, I think legislation forcing companies to alter their web-sites is wrong. Not only will it cost companies lots of money (and we're talking ANY company here, from tiny start-ups to huge corporations), but there goes freedom of expression. What next - publishers of newspapers/magazines/books MUST publish braille versions? Be interesting to see how many remain in business.
There are inequalities. Women are still paid less than men. Black people, even in the UK, are still paid less than white people. I just happen to personally believe that continuing to segregate people via legislation is not the answer. Legislation that is brought in to protect women, or disabled people, or coloured people, or whatever, perpetuates the idea that this particular group is a minority, and is in need of protection. I believe we need to work on the idea that any of the above mentioned groups is 'different' - because they're not. I'm not sure this legislation changes the way people think, is really what I'm getting at. And I think that's what we need to do. Just don't ask me how though!
I need to be clear. I hate guns. Passionately (sic). This is the main reason that, despite my wife being American, we will never move to the States. I don't particularly like Chuck Heston - I think he's an embittered, dangerous man, to be frank. I still don't think that his speech can be dismissed because of that. I think it was a very good speech, which made a valid point. The current wave of PCness does need to be questioned. What are the motives behind it? Is it acheiving what it set out to? What harm, intentional or otherwise, is being done because of it?
the website accessibility thing
Date: 2003-05-12 05:06 pm (UTC)The problem is that more and more business is being done online, and sometimes exclusively online. You know how airlines have web-only fares? If I can't see, and I can't access the airline's site, I am in effect being charged a different price because I'm blind. Is that fair? This is not a problem that the market will solve on its own.
There's a misconception that accessibility modifications will ruin the design of a site. It ain't so. If a company is paying millions for a flashy site, they can make it usable while they're at it. If a company is small, well, if their site is pretty simple, there's probably not a lot that needs to be done. We're talking alt tags for images and good links, people! It's not impossible.
erm...
Date: 2003-05-12 08:56 am (UTC)But on the other hand... what cultural war is Heston really talking about? I live in a country where the people in power feel free to say that consenting adults should have no right to do what they want to do in the privacy of their own homes. The White House backed up Santorum, you know. He gets to keep his job and help shape our national policy. Antisemitic attacks are on the rise. The country seems more and more divided. I don't care that much about the Dixie Chicks, but the nastiness of the reaction to that singer's comments really frightened me. Oh yeah, and our government also seems to believe that separation of church and state is somehow a bad thing. They do mean "church", by the way. And have I mentioned the PATRIOT Act? You'd think that would bug Chuckie a little bit more than transvestites wanting the freedom to wear what they want.
Yeah, there's a cultural war going on, all right. I don't doubt that there are doctrinaire morons on both sides, left and right, but I can see who is ruling my life right now, and it scares the cr*p out of me.
p.s. Yeah, that "niggardly" thing was REALLY stupid. Sheesh.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 12:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-05-12 02:30 pm (UTC)Basically, I agree with what you're saying too - there are bigger problems. However, I don't think that Chuck Heston's decision to talk about a different problem (and they are completely separate issues) automatically negates the legitimacy of what he's talking about. I've no idea how he feels about the current "blind patriotism" in the US - he didn't talk about that. Taking his speech as a whole though, in think he raised a very good point, and I don't think it should be dismissed as "blathering" just because he didn't tackle a bigger issue.
old speech, it turns out.
Date: 2003-05-12 04:52 pm (UTC)Still, I find the "cultural war" stuff in the speech a bit hard to take. Was he really talking about political correctness running amok? There was a bit of "THOSE PEOPLE are doin' their freaky thing in front of me and it's wigging me out!!!" to it, in my opinion. Much the same impulse that drives Senator Santorum, Trent Lott (who was sacrificed so others with the same opinion could continue in their positions of power unmolested), and seemingly, many of the judges Bush would like to appoint. At the time Heston made the speech, those guys were feeling pretty powerless. Now they're back in power.
Context is hard to ignore. If someone who used to be a member of the KKK talks about "the rights of white people", I regard that with suspicion, even though I believe that everybody should have rights. If a really politically conservative guy gets concerned about "culture wars", I have to wonder what his definition of "culture" is.
no subject
Date: 2003-05-13 08:40 am (UTC)You stated in another comment above that it's incorrect to try to pick apart the examples in the speech, because the basic point is still valid. However, I think that if EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE in the speech is not truly an example of horrible evil fascists trying to abridge your right, but of people honestly trying to bring about a more just society -- sometimes in a somewhat misguided way, sometimes not -- then that negates the point he's trying to prove. If you make a proposition and then proceed to support it with 20 examples that are not actually relevant to your proposition, it's true that your proposition might still be true, but you'd think that if it were, you could come up with some better examples. Since neither you nor Mr. Ducker lives in the US (and believe me, I'm jealous), you probably don't realize that many of the examples he uses are canonical right-wing dead horses. For example, take the Antioch code of intimate conduct. Whether you agree with it or not, it *is* an earnest attempt to reduce rape -- which is extremely prevalent on college campuses -- by giving survivors very clear grounds on which they may indict rapists. To suggest that requiring verbal consent to be given for sex is some sort of abridgement of free speech is ridiculous, because the code will never be enforced except in cases where sexual assault *does* occur. Anyway, to those of us who have heard these examples whipped out over and over again by conservatives who see any threat to white male privilege as a threat to their own power (and rightly so), Heston's speech isn't particularly convincing.