There are few in Hollywood who can be dominant on the screen and dominant in politics. Charleton Heston was one of the few and the great. And while he was gone from public life under the ravages of Alzheimers, it is in death that we are reminded of his contribution to our culture. I did a little reading prior to writing this and I was amazed at the sheer quantity of things he has done. So here's the links to his Wikipedia and IBDM entries. Go on and read more when you've had your fill of me gushing. I'm going to cover just a few points, as there is more than I can type in this blog.
First the films. Of course I remember him first as Moses. I mean, why not? He could take a crappy role (Soylent Green) and make it good, and if you gave him a good role, he'd knock you on your ass. His cameos were classic and timeless. The last film I watched with him in it was Tombstone, which was a small and understated role. He was perfect.
In politics, Heston started out a more liberal person. Later, when his brain caught up, he became quite the staunch conservative. He marched with Dr King, and supported Presidents Kennedy and Reagan. And as he stood before members of the National Rifle Association, he held a rifle above his head and proclaimed, "You can take my rifle ... when you pry it from my cold dead hands!" This was a man who stood for freedom, and a man who was not afraid to say the right thing when most would say the safe thing.
There is far more that I could say, but I wold only add a drop to the torrent of praise that pours forth. He will be well remembered.
And he will truly be missed.
9 comments:
I guess the time to pry the rifle out of his cold dead hands has come.
Toad, must you be always classless enough to piss on the dead?
Although I will admit, that wasn't the comment I expected. I was expecting to have to delete your comment, but that was relatively mild, though still classless.
But funny. Come on, how many people are dead because of the actions of Charleton Heston?
No it's not funny.
And I know of no one who died because of anything Charleton Heston did. If you're referring to the NRA, then I'm as responsible as him and feel no guilt whatsoever.
But here's a good related question: Why do liberals like yourselves defend every other constitutional right except the one in the Second Amendment? At least I believe in them all. Which is the only thing that kept me from wiping the crap you've posted on this post out.
Ill defend the constitution, even the second amendment as it is written but not the way the NRA has distorted it. I read the Constitution and see the 2nd amendment that was written in a place in time and is relevant to that time and situation. It clearly states that since we don't have an army, we need to arm our citizens so they can fight the British Army when they show up. We now have a standing army (well not here in the states) so that point is null. The 2nd amendment also never mentions machine guns which fire 1000 armor piercing rounds per minute or any ohter military weapons. Or AK-47 street sweepers. You don't need a street sweeper to hunt deer and if you do, you're a shitty hunter and you should find a new hobby. Be a man, hunt with a Bow and Arrow.
I fully believe that Chicago's hand gun ban is 100% constitutional as I still have the right to bare arms. All I have to do is register my rifle or shotgun and they are allowing me my constitutional right to bare arms. Heston would say that I should be able to have an anti aircraft gun on my roof but if 2 live Crew can't talk about booty on stage in front of adults then you can't have an RPG.
I'm not a fringe kook that believes in fully automatic weapons and RPG's for the masses. There has to be some reason. That being said, the 2nd amendment, like the other amendments in the Bill of Rights (except the 9th and 10th) are all individual rights. But the problem with gun registration and bans of certain "assault weapons" and "Satruday night specials" is that it's an incremental step to taking guns away from people. And with the exceptions of explosives and full auto weapons, the government needs to stay the hell away from my guns.
Consequently, if you use a gun in a criminal way, your ass should be long gone from society. And if you take the responsibility to carry a weapon on your person in public, there should be training and licensing. I'd go on more, but I'll save the details for a future post.
And I remember 2 Live Crew. They were fun to listen to. Too bad rap got too pissed and cliche. And if you missed it, freedom of speech is freedom of speech. Period.
Well no, freedom of speech isn't freedom of speech absolutely. Nor is the right to bare arms absolute. If I can't yell fire in a crowded theatre or accuse the CEO of Enron of assraping me then you can't have an M-60. Clearly I am preaching to the choir on that point but people like Heston would have disagreed with me, made it easier for kids to get such weapons and then staged an NRA rally in the town where those kids just gunned down half of their classmates.
It's easy to pry the gun out of his cold dead hands because they are covered with blood.
I own a gun, albiet a wussy single shot 20 guage but I am just as effective with that as most people are with a 12. My point is that I agree that the American citizen has a right ot arm and protect himself, arm himself for sport and recreation and arm himself for food. What he doesn't have the right to do is arm himself for WWIII or the race war that a lot of those gun nuts think is on the horizon and there is nothing in the 2nd amendment which would contridict what I say.
And if you need a hand gun tonight, you don't need a gun, you need a cop.
And I like how you think that registering a hand gun is the first step at taking your guns away but you don't think the Patriot Act is the first three steps in taking away your freedom.
Yo obviously have been reading the moonbat sites too much. You make the assumption that the majority of NRA people, including Charleton Heston, are extremists who want everybody packing uzis and rocket launchers and shit. And extremist comments like that is why the moonbat label gets bandied about so easily when you post comments.
If you studied the culture of the NRA, we want kids to have guns. But we teach them what a gun is, how to use it, and how to respect it. Most of the murdering little bastards that shoot up places have already broken an assload of laws to get their guns in the first place, and have parents that don't give a flying fuck what their kids are up to. Columbine is a classic example of this. Had anybody really been paying attention, there's have been over a dozen less bodies in the ground. But the easy answer is to blame the guns.
There are damned few whackmatics in the world, mostly in Montana, that are building bunkers waiting for the "war" to begin and arming themselves to the teeth. What the NRA faces is a group of "liberals" who are hellbent on jointing the global call to disarm citizens. And in many countries, guns are becoming less the rights of citizens and more the tools of governments. This usually means fighting any measure that (real or perceived) could be used to pry guns out of their owners' hands. And if they ever come for my guns, they will be prying them out of my dead hands.
And if you need a cop and the cop is 5 minutes away, or can't get there because the shit has hit the fan, the gun is there.
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