Let me just briefly make a comment about politics in this moment. It’s a politically agnostic or neutral comment, and not partisan, but it’s political nonetheless, so forgive me this brief statement:

If you’re the kind of a person who dunks on someone when they’ve just died—I don’t care if it’s Rob Reiner, or Charlie Kirk, or Left, or Right, anyone—you are the problem in today’s world, not the solution.

You are the gasoline, the rotting wood, that is daily being lit on fire by those who use moments like this to advance their own agendas by sowing anger, hate, and chaos.

I know the vast majority of Digital Bits readers—and human beings for that matter—are not like that, and to you I say: Thank you for your decency, and I stand with you.

I don’t care whether you’re he/him, she/her, they/them, or what have you. I don’t care whether you’re black or white, yellow or tan, pink or brown. I don’t care what God(s) you believe or, or not. Or who you love, or what language you speak, or where you’re from, or how much money you have. The bottom line is: If you’re a person of goodwill, who treats others with the same respect you’d wish for yourself and who chooses each day to put a little bit of good, happiness, and joy into the world, instead of making everyone around you miserable, then you’re A-OK in my book and a potential friend. Honestly, nothing else matters more than that—not politics, not nationalism, not religion. I have yet to meet a person—no matter how different from me—with whom I can’t find common ground and mutual understanding, have a respectful conversation, and maybe learn a thing or two. It’s really that simple.

I believe that the way you fight an indecent world is with decency.

Now… I know that Rob Reiner, like many people these days, had strong political feelings.

But I also know that seemingly every movie he made, and he made some truly great ones—This Is Spinal Tap, Stand by Me, When Harry Met Sally, A Few Good Men—at their heart, most of these films are about decency.

And none is more powerful to me than The Princess Bride, a film that has stood the test of time.

Decency matters.

It’s the first thing I ever learned in life, from my grandfather, from story after story that I read as a child, from Star Trek, from Sunday school. When I grew up as a member of Generation X in the 1970s and 80s, it seemed as if the whole world was trying to teach us lessons about decency on a daily basis. It’s the glue that holds civilization together.

Yet today, it seems as if the whole world is trying instead to pretend that was a bad thing, that decency is actually a weakness, and that it isn’t important, even essential, to the character of a good human being.

Like all of us, Rob Reiner was many things in his life. And like all of us, perfect wasn’t one of them.

But the one thing I know for sure, is that he was a good and decent human being.

And today, my heart goes out to his family and his friends for the terrible double loss they’ve just suffered.

There’s a line from The Beatles that comes to mind: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Rob Reiner put a lot of love into the world, and you can see just a little bit of it in these two images below (captured from True Love: The Princess Bride Phenomenon – A Conversation with Rob Reiner, Cary Elwes, and Robin Wright).

I mean… to me, those pictures really say it all.

The world is poorer today for Reiner’s loss, but all the better for the time he spent in it. And I will always be grateful to him.

Rest in peace, Rob and Michele.

- Bill Hunt

(You can follow Bill on social media on Twitter, BlueSky, and Facebook, and also here on Patreon)