"God Bless You, Edwin Meese!" is the title given to the publication of comments made at a press conference sponsored by the National Coalition Against Censorship, held in New York City on January 16, 1986.[1] It was first published in The Nation on January 25, 1986 and reprinted in the collection Vonnegut By The Dozen in 2013. An edited version of the first half appeared in Fates Worse Than Death, published in 1991, where it was cast as remarks Vonnegut intended to deliver at an appearance before the Commission on Pornography under then-Attorney General Edwin Meese.[2]
Summary[]
Edwin Meese with President Ronald Reagan, 1981.
Having read testimony from victims of sexual abuse to the Commission, an ashamed Vonnegut says he's forced to conclude that certain "words and images" must be censored to prevent crime. Freely circulating ideas are clearly dangerous, especially to children, and elected leaders should assure that the thoughts of the citizenry are brought into harmony with those in power. All these poisonous ideas stem from an original source of all violence and sexual immorality. Vonnegut implores that all spectators under 14, or under 30 without adult accompaniment, or those prone to sexual violence cover their ears, since only the members of the Commission are used to enduring such horrendous pornography—the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.
This friend to "kiddie porn" can only have come into being because a "pederastic Congressman... tacked it onto the Rivers and Harbors bill" when no one was paying attention. Hitler, who led "an exceedingly clean life sexually," was wrong to blame the Jews when it's clear that unclean images produce all social ills. Thus, America must get rid of the First Amendment—which clearly protects, legalizes, and even celebrates them and the acts they produce—and this can only be accomplished if citizens are moved to "rise up in righteous wrath" against freedom of speech, and "many other only slightly less offensive parts of the Bill of Rights." Only a horrible, sexually violent deviant would dare to defend such criminal liberty.[3]
Quotes[]
"I want the help of our elected leaders in bringing my thoughts into harmony with their own and thus into harmony with the thoughts of those who elected them. That is democracy."
"At terrible risk of infection, [the Commission] have to wallow in pornography. They are so fearless. We might think of them as sort of sewer astronauts."
"[W]e must get rid of the First Amendment. In no way can this be interpreted as an anti-Semitic act. The authors of that Amendment, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, were not Jews."