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Haunting divinities IV: The sheriff's silver bullet

By Michael Moriarty
web posted October 18, 2010

Gary CooperGary Cooper.

What an acting lesson he was all of his life!

Between Along Came Jones and High Noon, one could not possibly have a better role model for great film acting, both comic and dramatic, than Gary Cooper.

The expression on the actor's face in this photo is, of course, Cooper at his most comic extreme.

Gary Cooper has traditionally been a low-key legend. What is always going on inside him, if you'll forgive my hyperbole, is so hauntingly divine that he needn't really have to prove anything to anybody. It looks low key, when actually Gary Cooper is, as an actor, "packin'"!

In Along Came Jones, the great star alters the mask of his face to become a fraudulent version of a legendary, Western gunslinger. He does it by merely lowering the lid of one eye and one eye alone. He couples that with an increasingly self-conscious posture as he tries out his intimidating walk through a bar filled with would-be tough guys.

I'd be laughing harder if I weren't so mesmerized by his craft.

Then, of course, there's High Noon.

Which brings me to my favorite piece of acting in that movie, the moments on the floor of his own Sheriff's office, preparing to possibly die and not only for the sake of his own self-respect but the entire idea of a civilized humanity.

Gary Cooper in High NoonOf course, one must have a face like Gary Cooper's, one of the Mt. Rushmore brand, with quiet strength chiseled into every pore. Behind that mask of indomitable integrity quivers an additionally ordinary human being possibly faced with his own demise. I venture that most of the human race has shared a Sheriff Gary Cooper moment in their lives, either as adults or children growing up.

When an entire audience silently exclaims, "I know exactly how he's feeling!"

That's not only great acting and great theater, it is spiritually healing medicine. A safe rehearsal for the possibly dangerous moments in life to come.

When a lone Sheriff enters the main street of town to face the bad guys … well … we're hovering on the very edge of civilization itself. I think of Glenn Beck these days as our High Noon Sheriff in town.

Glenn Beck?!

Yup.

One wonders, when push comes to shove, and the Progressives of the Obama Nation think they have no alternative but a violent showdown with the Tea Party? How many Tea Partiers will there be left to back up Glenn Beck?

Beck is not planning to be "packin'" anything but his courage and faith in God. Besides, he doesn't want anyone with him who might be "packin'". Backin' up the Sheriff is one thing … but an American Mahatma Ghandi?! The white Dr. King?

Hmmm … Beck has, without a doubt, already passed the "point of no return". He now symbolizes everything that not only the Tea Party stands for but that a million feet of American film classics such as High Noon remind us of.

Some Americans just don't like bullies!

While other Americans, the Progressive type, just love having bullies around to, well, help make Progress! Some are soft-spoken bullies, "liberal fascists" as Jonah Goldberg calls them. None of us doubt that the Progressive Movement's own Point of No Return has already been passed with Obama Care and that means more bullies are on the way.

The Congressional victory of the President's health agenda for America will face serious challenges which no part of the Obama Nation can back down from.

However, when the very heart of Progressive Evil, its 37 year-old, pro-abortion agenda with Roe v Wade is challenged? State by state? It will not be pretty. It will make the border disputes in Arizona look like a lovers' quarrel.

The overturning of Roe v Wade must be done eventually, if only state by state.

The evil of the Progressive Movement cannot possibly be stopped if its greatest achievement, the Roe v Wade decision, the virtual legalization of murder is not overturned.

Such a warning is exactly like Gary Cooper challenging the bad guys that unless they leave town they are going to be arrested or shot in a showdown.

The implications of Roe v Wade are the very pistols and ammunition that these Progressive Bad Guys are packin'!

If Americans are not going to protect those that can least protect themselves, then there's really no civilization to America and the Progressives can twist the United States into any pretzel member of the New World Order they wish to.

Overturn Roe v Wade and you overturn the entire Progressive Agenda in America.

Leave it as it is and the Progressives will not only win every major battle, they will know that the Americans are no longer really that serious about their Declaration of Independence and their Constitution.

"If we have to argue over the 'inalienable right to life'

in the same way we fought a Civil War over 'all men are created equal',

it might not be worth it.

Besides,

 gestating infants

are human beings

most of us never see,

 right?"

That line of thinking is exactly what the Progressives are counting on. Hitler certainly counted on the Germans not seeing the Holocaust. The Confederacy counted on the minimal number of blacks in the North. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Somehow, after 89 years of American slavery, American eyesight in 1860 had cleared up considerably. With 37 years of legalized abortion, do we have, as slavery did, another fifty some years still to wait? I don't think so.

When most Americans realize that their money and freedoms will be in jeopardy or lost to the Progressives as long as Roe v Wade stands, as long as legalized murder can be committed in the United States, they will have to show up on the streets of High Noon.

They'll have to follow This High Noon's Glenn Beck out into the open to face the Liberal Fascists, the soft-talking bullies, those who refuse to protect those who can least protect themselves. We have to face down the barbarians with Ivy League degrees. Liberal fascists. Harvard supremacists.

Whatever you call the Progressive Movement, their train rolled into town with Henry Wallace over half a century ago, and with his Communist sympathies written all over the word Progressive. The Progressives now own at least two branches of the government and the main Sheriff over at Justice!

Needless to say, Attorney General Eric Holder is no Glenn Beck or even Gary Cooper for that matter. So let's back up our Mahatma Ghandi. Let's stand behind the new Dr. King. It takes the same exact courage it took Gary Cooper's Sheriff.

Let me tell you as a one-time actor, nothing beats ending a drama, playing the final act as one of the Good Guys instead of the Bad Guys. I've played both to earn a living. The showdown coming toward us at High Noon, however, is about a lot more than earning a living. It is about the singularly American, "inalienable right to life".

If you are not against abortion, you're either one of the bad guys or Hannah Arendt's definition of evil's essence. To paraphrase her, Evil is now the essence of a very Progressive and seemingly harmless or, as Ms. Arendt might describe it, "banal" charm.

Arendt's "banality of evil" is the American "cool" guy, disturbingly like a Hollywood movie star.

God bless Glenn Beck for not being the Cool Guy!

With child-like honesty, he's not only telling us that the "Emperor has no clothes" but that the entire house is on fire. While Beck refuses to leave the house while it is burning, his hope is that the Tea Partiers can put the fire out in coming elections.

My certainty is that, unless America begins to overturn Roe v Wade, whatever gains are made this November will be lost. The comforts of Socialism will kick in and the majority of Americans will become addicted to a Welfare State.

Without the courage to protest the Supreme Court's corrupting influence, its habitual decisions to take the line of least resistance – from the Dredd Scott decision's legalization of slavery to the Roe v Wade approval of abortion – America will continue to blind itself to the increasingly depraved progress of a Progressive America.

The Bi-partisan Machine, including the RINO Progressives, that has, with utter certainty, controlled the Presidential elections for decades, is not going to see its idea of Progress stopped.

Only an America willing to say no to the legalized murder of abortion is capable of changing the direction of America's all too obvious, decades-long surrender to the Progressive, Bi-partisan Ruling Class.

Nothing less than overturning Roe v. Wade can stop them for good.

Why? There is no other way to make the Progressives take traditional Americans seriously.

Since the entire Progressive Movement is inspired by lawyers, the poor Tea Partiers will find it impossible to stay out of court long enough to sustain their momentum; while in the election booth, the "returns" keep giving the Progressives their unending stream of recent Progressive Presidents, from the New World Order Bush family through the likes of Clinton and Obama to a Republican successor who will find it impossible or "inconvenient" to challenge the Progressive Machine.

The only end to the Progressive Movement is an end to the Roe v Wade Decision and legalized abortion.

Only in the overturning of Roe v Wade can America create the "Sheriff's Silver Bullet", can this nation display the commensurate commitment to life that will be the antidote to a century-old, death-delivering disease called The American Progressive Movement. ESR

Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com.

 

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