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FIGHTING THE CULTURAL WAR IN AMERICA
By: CHARLTON HESTON
Actor Charlton Heston, born October 4, 1924, was one of
five performing artists who received the Kennedy Center
Honors on December 6, 1997.
Mr. Heston remained in Washington D.C. and addressed the
20th Anniversary of the Free Congress Foundation and the
4th Birthday of the NET TV network. The following are
excerpts from his Insightful remarks.
Mr. Heston and Mrs Heston celebrated 50 years of marriage
in 1994.
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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.(Mr. Heston then asked those present who owned a gun to
raise their hand.)
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 though better of it?
If so, you are a victim of the culture war being waged against
traditional American freedom of beliefs and ideas. You have been
assaulted and robbed of the courage of your convictions. Your pride in
who you are and what you believe in has been ridiculed, ransacked, and
plundered! It may be a war without a bullet or bloodshed, but with
just as much liberty lost: You and your country are less free!
Because you choose to own guns- affirmed by no less than the
Bill of Rights- you embrace a view at odds with the cultural war
lords. If that is the outcome of cultural war, and you are the
victims, I can only ask the obvious question. What will 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?
Rank-and-file Americans wake up every morning, increasingly
bewildered and confused at why their views make them lesser citizens.
The message gets through; Heaven help the God fearing, law-abiding,
Caucasian, middle- class Protestant-or even worse, evangelical
Christian, Midwestern or Southern- or even worse, rural, apparently
straight-or even worse, admitted heterosexuals, gun-owing-or even
worse, NRA-card-carrying, average working stiff-or even worse, male
working stiff-because, not only don't you count, our'e a down-right
obstacle to social progress. 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 from your new-America- and until you do,
would you mind shutting up?
That is why you didn't raise your hand. That's how cultural
war works. 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 anymore. So, they
contrive to change it through 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 clitism. It appears that,
rather than evaporate in the flash of a split atom, we may succumb to
a divided culture!
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! Its true-they were white guys! So were most of
the guys that died in Lincoln's name opposing slavery in the 1860's.
So why should I be ashamed of white guys? Why is "Hispanic Pride" or
"Black Pride" a good thing, while "White Pride" conjures shaven heads
and white hoods? Why was the Million Man March on Washington
celebrated by many as progress, while the Promise Keepers March on
Washington was greeted with suspicion and ridicule? I'll tell you why,
Cultural warfare!
You don't see other Hollywood luminaries speaking out on this
do you? Its not because there aren't any. Its because they can't
afford the heat! They dare not speak for fear of CNN or the IRS or the
SAG or NBC! It saps the strength of our country when the personal
price is simply too high to stand for what you believe in. Today,
speaking with the courage of your convictions can be costly, the price
of principal can be so high that legislators won't lead and citizens
can't follow, and so there is no arm to fight back. That's cultural
warfare!
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 woman to hate men, blacks who raise a militant fist with one
hand while they seek preference with the other, New Age apologists for
juvenile crime who see roving gangs as a means to only the
merchandizing violence as a form of entertainment for impressionable
minds, and gun bans as a means to only the Lord-knows-what. We have
reached that point in time when our social policy originates on Oprah.
Its time to pull the plug!
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