The Right Versus The Privilege to Bear Arms

by iosaf Sun Apr 06, 2008 14:34

As an actor he was Moses, Ben Hur, Genghis Khan, the only human who served Planet of the Apes, El Cid, Julius Caesar, Hamlet, Antony from Antony & Cleopatra, Gideon & Abe Lincoln - and he also played another fictional US president too.

He was very polite to Michael Moore about the gun thing, all things considered (like him quite probably being a not too far in the closet kkk head). Mr Moore had wanted to talk to him at the end of the documentary "Bowling for Columbine" because after his 2000 acceptance speech for being awarded a rifle by the NRA his defiant slogan sort of went down in history & has entered our popular culture. Many people say "from my cold dead hands!" when expressing obstinacy or resolution on a whole range of issues. Passing a joint for example.

So there you go.

You may see him play Moses, God or other Biblical characters in the usual telly film repeat tributes or indeed telly stations might be ironic & show you "Bowling for Columbine". His death though offers a chance to ping this article. & if you don't like it or can't put it in its proper context (reaction to the Vtech shooting by that poor troubled land with the coldsores) then you can have a look at a picture of him here with that other wonderful line "oh no they did it!" when coming across the statue of liberty up to its tits in beach. https://www.indymedia.ie/article/74500#comment140001

The article though was a serious one & was intended to make more than one point (the right to bear arms under the US constitution). It's most important element was the cautionary note that when rights are refused any sections of the community or society they cease to be rights. They become privileges. It goes for guns, it goes for loads of things.

by William Kilgore Sun Apr 06, 2008 16:29

Linking Charlton Heston to theKu Klux Klan is preposterous and outragious. The lateHeston was one of the few white American actors who during the 1960 participated in civil rights activities..

And for good and valid arguments in favour of 2nd Amendment rights, not just in the U.S., but worldwide, check link below

by iosaf Mon Apr 07, 2008 13:18

The links between the NRA & the KKK have been made a thousand times, were made in the "bowling for columbine" documentary and even by the "south park" animators. The year the KKK was illegalised the NRA began with the same prominent members.

but like Whatever! I'm sure you're right about old Moses. Anyone who could play such a memorable part in "Planet of the Apes" obviously had a well considered agenda on race relations in the USA at the time, or maybe he was merely taking a good part inspired by one of Arthur F. Clarke's miserable failures at futurology that by the 1990's we'd all have monkey servants.

Anyway - for good arguments on not allowing liberals to end the right to bear arms in the USA and a domino effect of that hemisphere & Latin America, I recommend reading my article above.

by A10 Mon Apr 07, 2008 21:37

Proves you wrong..The NRA was founded two years before the KKK.And this nonsense is just purpoted by Fat man Moore in his opinionary Blowing hard for Columbine.Not that Fat boy could be botherd doing any research anyway.

by iosaf Tue Apr 08, 2008 23:14

if you're going to say I'm wrong provide some evidence.

"the National Rifle Association, or NRA, is a non-profit group for the promotion of firearm ownership rights, marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection of hunting and self-defense in the United States, established in New York in 1871 as the American Rifle Association"

"The Civil Rights Act of 1871, also known as the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871, is an important federal statute in force in the United States. Several of its provisions still exist today as codified statutes, but the most important still-existing provision is 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The Act was originally enacted a few years after the American Civil War, along with the 1870 Force Act."

by A10 Wed Apr 09, 2008 00:07

The KKK ACT of 1871 is the same year the NRA was founded.

Trouble is dear Isoaf the KKK had been existance since the end of the civil war 1865.1866 to be precise,when it was founded by ex confederate officers intent on keeping white supremercy. The NRA was founded by two Northern Union officers,who were displeased with the inaccurateshooting of their conscripted men.
The fact that the KKK act was in 1871 has nothing factually to do with the NRA.
The act is a suppression act of the KKK.Unless of course you belived the KKK was an offically enacted body by US parliment???????
Proof enough for you or do you just want to keep beliving a fat man liberal bullshitter movie maker,who fits facts to fit his own stupisity and who was even disowned by his own in Hollywood??

by iosaf Wed Apr 09, 2008 14:24

spitting tobacco I do believe my honourable friend, A10 has misread my comment & thinks instead I believe the KKK and the NRA were founded in the same year - or that the initial laws to end the KKK were binding throughout the union or that this continuing filibustering* accusations of know-nothingism* further clear the good name of Charlton Heston.

[** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filibuster http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Know_Nothing ]

by Historian Wed Apr 09, 2008 14:43

Afraid A10 is right on this one. KKK suppression legislation and the founding of the NRA have absolutely nothing to do one another. Indeed I would imagine that the principals in either organisation would have happily used one anothers rifles on the other.

The NRA makes a perfectly valid case in favour of the right to gunownership and the right to self defence. A factor which has been attributed by leading US criminologists to deterring a significant amount of crime. Indeed, in this country had Padraig Nally not had a legally held weapon he would have been robbed, assaulted and perhaps worse. To be honest I cannot understand the left's objection to people defending themselves against criminals. If they also supported a tough stance by the state against criminals there might be some logic in their argument but of course they do not.

by iosaf Wed Apr 09, 2008 21:12

You obviously haven't read the article. In which I pointed out the tantamount importance of a the right to bear arms to groups such as the black panthers in the USA or the EZLN and Zapatistas in Mexico.

by Barry Thu Apr 10, 2008 02:07

In the Planet of the Apes the monkeys had guns and humans did not , ergo monkeys kicked human ass whenever they felt like it and there wasnt much humans could do about it but cower and go " urk" . Charlton also snogged a chimpanzee woman who was a pacifist . But even she was more powerful than charlton because all her buddies had guns and charltons buddies just went " urk"

Charlton heston was among the very first notables to rally to Dr Kings side in the 1960s , I cannot accept any KKK link or inference and believe it does the man a great injustice ..
In my opinion a lot of good people with good guns will do a lot of good in the world .

by iosaf Thu Apr 10, 2008 14:12

was Heston right wing enough to merit the "probably sat down to tea with the KKK" slur?

".......long active in politics, Heston was of rigorously conservative persuasion, though – like his great friend Ronald Reagan – he had begun his involvement in politics as a moderate Democrat who campaigned for Adlai Stevenson, voted for John F Kennedy in 1961 and attended Martin Luther King's march on Washington. In later life, however, he made no bones about his position. “Yep, today I am about as Right-wing as a man can be,” he proudly told The Daily Telegraph's Jan Moir in 1999. “They don't come any more Right-wing than me.” He supported the Gulf War and opposed both a nuclear freeze and any moves to curtail the individual's right to bear firearms. Six times president of the Screen Actors Guild, he fought long and bitter battles with the liberal comedian Ed Asner over what he saw as attempts to politicise the union......."

how gay was Ben Hur?

"......The veteran director William Wyler cast him in Ben-Hur after a successful collaboration the previous year in the Western The Big Country — a pacifist allegory that became a classic of its kind. Ben-Hur was a huge box-office success and a multiple Oscar-winner, including an award for Heston as best actor of the year. In 1996 his performance in this film came back to haunt him in a squabble with the writer Gore Vidal, who worked on the script without screen credit. Vidal insisted that he had written the relationship between Ben-Hur and the Roman centurion Messala to imply that they had once been homosexual lovers. Stephen Boyd, who played Messala, and Wyler were said to be privy to this coded sub-text but Heston, by virtue of his known puritanism, was kept in the dark. Heston rejected the notion but the film is at least ambiguous on this score......."

how aware of his own parodic status was he to become?

".....Most of his later appearances on the big screen were in cameos where he played versions of himself or parodies of the characters he had created; most (such as Wayne's World 2) made much of his lack of humour for comic effect. His final role was as Joseph Mengele in a little-seen picture from 2003. [ My Father, Rua Alguem 5555 ]....... "

& Michael Moore?

".....in 2002 [Heston] walked out, mid-interview, of an appearance in Michael Moore's documentary Bowling for Columbine, when the NRA was accused of insensitivity in staging its annual conference just after the massacre at a high school. Heston later complained that Moore had ambushed him unfairly......"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS...1.xml

I love "Daily Telegraph" obituaries. They rock. Their best one ever was for Nico the singer of Velvet Underground fame. Which I will paraphrase from memory, it's cruel irony had me rolling on the floor in giggles. (...."after being a notorious heroin user for most of her life, Christa Päffgen [Nico] finally abandoned the habit for the healthier option of regular bicycle rides through Ibiza. She fell off her bike three weeks later and thus died"......)