"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 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 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 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 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 apologize 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 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? 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 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.

Out of fear from such attacks, people have recoiled from it.  Political Correctness is fraught with double standards.  For example, Rush Limbaugh recently made headlines when he opined that a certain quarterback had high expectations on him to do well, because he was black and the media wants to see a black quarterback triumph.  This wasn’t racist when taken into to context with his whole statement.  It’s not even racist as a sound bite.  But the fear that what he said could even be considered as a racist remark caused him to be pressured by the producers to drop his contract with the show and leave.   Had this been a remark made by a lesser known pundit, this would have been the absolute end of their career.   

Some black pundits have said quite frankly that white people can not talk about race, only we (meaning black people) can.   Racism is a dirty thing… ugly and horrible.  But race is still a fact of life, I don’t believe it means anything in regards to ability or entitlement, but it is a descriptor.  Have you ever worked with a group of people that included a black person?  What happened when someone asked for “James” and James, is the black guy and someone wanted to point him out… they will say “He’s that guy over there with the blue shirt…” when half the guys over there are in a blue shirt.  “The guy in the blue shirt with the green hat…”  If the person directing is white – the very last thing he would say is “Oh, James is that black guy over there” when the fact that James’ race is the most distinguishing characteristic visible from a distance.  Should the situation be reversed, there is no qualm in stating, “James?  Yeah, he’s that white guy over there.”   The PC-Police have made it unacceptable for one to state the obvious if you are white.    

I’m not going to discuss Heston’s remarks about Ice-T’s lyrics… the decline of civility and morality in the media is obvious.   It’s like talking about the likelihood of a sunset.    For the last two years you could openly say “Ass” on the public radio and on TV, and now just recently the word “Fuck” has been legitimized.  The continual push against the boundaries of what is acceptable will soon leave us in the reverse effect where common decency is no longer acceptable.

In item #1, we see a teacher who reads aloud an essay about the word “Nigger” written by a black student.  Could you please tell me if this essay would have caused any problems as all if the person who read it was black?  What if the essay in question was written by *shock* a white person? 

The teacher, being white, is not socially allowed to read out loud this essay… the black student who wrote it can say “nigger” all he wants.  Chris Rock can shout it at gathered thousands who pay to hear it.  Yet, had Chris Rock wrote his standup routine down, handed it to this teacher, and the teacher was to read it out loud – That would be unacceptable.   

My point is that this isn’t about the word “nigger”.  Let me tell you something – I don’t like that word.  I have an uncle who is a racist and every time I hear him open is pie hole, I want to fill it with a cinder block.  I’m not racist, and I don’t like people who are.  I think racism is a direct cause and effect indicator of both poor education and low IQ.  I’m not defending the word’s use here either.  What I am pointing out is the double standard bias going on that is now part of the unwritten law regarding Political Correctness.  This teacher will probably loose her job or get stabbed or something.  Because of political correctness. 

Now I am not sure what the essay in question said… but the article says that “she read it like a black person.”  What?  Just how does a black person read?  Oh, she was using slang?  She was using such pronunciations?  Like “Let me Axe you something?”  How come this isn’t a concern when someone acts “Scottish”?  “She read it like a Scot!”  If this is a case of a white person acting black – then the PC-Police need to raid Eminem, the Icy Hot Stuntaz, and just about every high school out there.    You know, if people really want a color-blind society, there can be no double standards.  This essay in question was written by a black student.  Why wasn’t the student brought to question for writing it?   Another question – would there have been any question if the teacher had asked another black student, or the author, to have read it? 

The PC-Race issue is a hot button.  It can ruin people publicly… unless you really were a Racist and turned Liberal… then you could become a US Senator like Robert Byrd!  Racism is a Liberal tool… a political weapon… and unless you have a carry permit for this weapon, you can’t touch it.  Yes, Chris Rock has this permit.  But evidently this teacher didn’t.

Item #2… if the President names a group of oddly aligned nations “An Axis Of Evil”, why would it be bothersome to anyone if the General in question says he is fighting Satan?   I'm not even going to explain this one to you, because you probably wouldn't understand it anyway.  Evil = Works of Satan, so fighting Evil = fighting Satan.  Anyone stupid enough to even question this shouldn't be qualified to the point that their question is even acknowledged.   If the First Amendment applies at all - to anything - why would it be a problem for a man to express his opinion?  And why on Earth would Donny Rumsfeld be called to "Investigate" it?  Oh, I get it, you Liberals can now pick and chose who get to have a personal opinion and who doesn't?     I'm sorry, but missed the election when we all voted you guys that power.

Sure, there is no battalion of uniformed, armed, and sworn Officers of the “PC-Police”.  However there are people out there who I call off-handedly “PC-Police” because they make it their personal duty to seek out anything that can be even slightly perceived as being politically incorrect – and to try to burn them. 

I have a feeling that I have some how offended you personally.  I see that you are following the typical Liberal game plan.  Since you can’t attack my ideas with well reasoned logical arguments, you have to attack me personally.  Like a typical mono-synaptic Liberal, you even contradict yourself.    I have spoken in an Un-PC manor so you are called to duty to attack me.  Not only that, but you also contradict the very argument that you made as your main point.   

If ignorance is bliss, then being Liberal must be like being high all the time.

From Pam@dot.edu:

You are an asshole.

I'll let you be the judge.