Ron Silver Was Articulate, Energetic and Made the Left to Right Political Journey
By Michael Barone, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Ron Silver, actor and political activist, has died at 62. I admired him as an actor and as a political thinker. In my occasional conversations with him, he was knowledgeable, articulate, clear-sighted, energetic. Lots of energy: his speech to the 2004 Republican National Convention roused the crowd as few speeches by anyone but the nominees and (sometimes) the keynoter do. He had made after 9/11, as I had made more slowly some years earlier, the political journey from left to right, but he seemed entirely lacking in the hard edge of hate that so evident in some liberals and some conservatives. I sensed that he retained a certain sympathy for his younger, more liberal self and for the people whose politics he had shared but could no longer. And I felt instinctively that he understood things—understood politics and, more important, understood public policy and the importance of standing up for civilization against barbarism. Roger L. Simon has a beautiful remembrance of Ron and John Podhoretz has a fine appreciation.
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Reader Comments
Always Liked Him - but
I always like Silver, but was frustrated with his politics when he was liberal. I couldn't understand how a thinking man could reason that way. When he had his change of heart, (as I did when I left college and began working, paying taxes and raising a family), I knew he was indeed a man of intellect and tremendous character. He will be missed.
Worst president? If you haven’t seen enough yet…you ain’t seen nothin’ yet!
A Good Man
Mr. Barone,
Thank you for your kind words about Ron Silver. He was a great man who loved this country.
The War on Terror is a lie....As are pretty much all Government Wars....
When Barone said, Ron Silver realized "the importance of standing up for civilization against barbarism..."
What he should have really said was Ron Silver embraced a War on Terror Barbarism that was no different in substance than our fabricated enemies.
Saying this would be exposing the lie of the War on Terror which is nothing more than one more excuse for Big Government.
Government in a nutshell survives by creating enemies for the sheeple to cower in fear over so the Government can abuse (or in some cases kill) both foreign and domestic dissent for it's fake war.
Government as form of protection is a lie. A lie that will hopefully die when this worthless Government (and several others) collapse from their own economic hubris which caused this economic downturn. They don't call it a correction for nothing!
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