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'Winning the Cultural War'
Charlton Heston's Speech to the Harvard Law School Forum February 16, 1999

I want to re-connect you with your own sense of liberty of your own freedom of thought, your own compass for what is right.

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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 rightist. 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.

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. Non-violently, 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 laws that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. . .

Guns save lives and reduce crime

Laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons have caused violent crime to drop by 4.9 percent, murder by 7.7 percent, rape by 5.3 percent, and aggravated assault by 7.01 percent. Contradicting the rhetoric of reformers, the ability of citizens to carry concealed weapons suppresses crime far more than any other factor. Only one category of crime increases when non-discretionary concealed weapons laws are adopted: property crime. The explanation is simple. Criminals switch to less dangerous crimes when potential victims are likely to be armed. Mugging wanes; car-stereo theft waxes. “The policy implications are undeniable: If you’re interested in reducing murder and rape, then letting law-abiding, mentally competent citizens carry concealed weapons has a positive impact.”