Charlton Heston Deserved Better
Charlton Heston is dead. But in some ways, once the impact of Alzheimer’s started robbing his mind, I dare say to some in his family his dying process had already begun back in 2002 (with his announcement of the disease).
I’m a liberal who believes in reasonable levels of gun control. So clearly, my philosophy is not in line with the NRA (which Heston led in the late 1990s). A man should be evaluated by the sum of his parts–as an actor Heston was in many classic films–made classic partially by his performances. As a private citizen, Heston served in World War II, then in the 1960s he participated in civil rights protests (as evidenced here)–long before becoming more conservative and a Republican.
But of course, for every relatively nice Daily Kos diary post in tribute to Heston, there are ill-conceived, insensitive posts like this one. Mourn for the passing of Heston. You don’t have to agree with him completely, but one should respect his body of work as a whole. And one should hope that none of us or our loved ones are ravaged by a disease like Alzheimer’s.
I wonder and worry about the increasingly lack of civility on the Internet–like folks who choose to mock the dead. To paraphrase Joseph Welch’s comment to Joseph McCarthy back in 1954: “Have we left no sense of decency?”
I sure hope we do.
And I equally hope that Turner Classic Movies has a planned Heston marathon in the near-term.
Tags: civil rights, NRA