Re: Heston speech

From: Loree Thomas (loreetg@yahoo.com)
Date: Wed Feb 21 2001 - 15:12:07 MST


--- Brian D Williams <talon57@well.com> wrote:
>
> From: Loree Thomas <loreetg@yahoo.com>
> >Maybe it's just me, but maybe not. Didn't Mr.
> Heston
> >on the one hand condemn the stifling of freedom of
> >speech on campus and on the other BRAG about his
> role
> >in stifling Ice-T's freedom of speech?
>
> No, What Heston did was call Time-Warner on
> profiteering on Ice-T's
> song. He called into question their ethics.

That's a way of looking at it, I suppose... but it
misses by quite a bit in my opinion. What do YOU
think he was doing when "He called into question their
ethics" other than using the same tired old PC
tactics? The very tactics his rant (excuse me...
speech) was attacking. That's how PCness works,
through "moral" suasion and public approbation.

Let's say an artist sings a song about Christ engaging
in oral sex with Mary Magdalene. Or another sings a
song about smoking pot... or about dismembering
kittens, or shooting queers or establishing the gold
standard or taking away guns or giving guns away free
or or or....

Even if those songs are commercially profitable, they
shouldn't be produced because some people find them
offensive? And that would make the record companies
that did produce such songs unethical?

By that standard, record companies probably shouldn't
produce anything except innocuous bubble gum love
songs, 'cause someone is gonna be offended no matter
what.

The record company is ethical if and only if they
produce and promote records that sell and don't
produce or promote records that don't sell. It is
UNETHICAL for them to NOT provide their stockholders
with a profit or their customers with a wanted product
simply because the content makes them uncomfortable.

"Cop Killer" was a commercial success.

I don't condone the sentiments expressed in that song,
but the record company wasn't unethical in the least
to produce it.

> How about this, what about the family of a slain
> police officer
> suing Ice-T for instigating the killing?

Sounds like anti black PC speak rather than pro black
PC speak. Let them sue the manufacture and seller of
the gun used too... And let them sue the NRA as well
for promoting the individual ownership of guns.

Or how about we act like sane people and do none of
them?

"Songs don't kill cops, people kill cops."

It's very PC to speak out against violence in
entertainment... and this is where I see Heston as a
hypocrite. He condemns one form of "thought control"
and engages in another.

He isn't really pro liberty... else he'd take the bad
with the good. He just wants to draw the restrictions
in different places than they are currently drawn.
And he acts out his desires in real life. That's
scary.

Am I the only one on this list that sees things this
way?

Loree

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