a distinct accent and phraseology

 

Morley Safer

 "There are two kinds of people who are opposed to pornography--those who don't know what they're talking about, and those who don't know what they're missing."

     So begins Larry Flynt's interview with 60 Minutes' Morley Safer, back in 1977.

I thought Flynt's pivotal remark in the conversation was this:

"The sooner we bring pornography out in the open, the sooner people are gonna see it for what it really is--and there's nothing more boring.  And repression just makes it popular!"

     Safer followed with, "...and Larry Flynt a rich fella."

     Flynt:  "Well now if you were talking to the publisher of the New York Times, you wouldn't be talking about how much money he  makes...

     "What you've got to remember is, the newsstand is the poor man's art museum.  The rich and the privileged have the erotic art museums -- Hustler appeals to Blue Collar America.

          ...Look, now see--Moses freed the Jews.  Lincoln freed the slaves.  And Larry Flynt, with Hustler magazine, would like to free a lotta neurotics.  I know a copy of our magazine is a lot cheaper than a psychoanalyst."

The interview finishes with Flynt saying:

-------------------------- " "  Many of the individual liberties we now enjoy because of the very liberal Warren Court have been placed in jeopardy by recent rulings by the conservative Supreme Court that we now have.

     They have literally sown dragon's teeth in the fertile soil of the First Amendment, and we have to do something about it!  Ya-hafta remember, freedom is not always recognizable.  

It is not limited to 60 Minutes, or the New York Times.  

Sometimes it's Hustler magazine, or an X-rated movie in a nice neighborhood.  A few years back, freedom was a young man sayin' "Hell no, I won't go."  And then it was some hard-ass ridin' down Main Street sayin' "Love it or leave it."

     And it's beyond me to understand, how a country founded on the printed word, at our 200th birthday, is questioning what kind of book that you can read, and what kind of movie that you can see.  When government interferes in this, they're interfering with our thought process.  No one has a right to do that!

     And if I have to go to jail to prove my point, then I will do just that.

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