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It's almost too easy for modern people to mock Jesse Helms and his position. In an age where the Southern plantation-owning aristocrat with a genteel manner and a vicious soul is viewed by many as an historical throwback or a caricature, it's hard for many people to imagine that such people were (and still are) real.
It would all be much more amusing if Helms hadn't made many people's lives significantly more difficult by his actions. It would all be much more amusing if there wasn't still a tendency for people to believe the way Helms did... not even to believe what Helms did, but to function in life thinking that there are two kinds of people: The kind who meet certain qualifications and might be considered human beings, and the rest, whose lives, feelings, rights, and humanity are all expendable in the name of the Preservation of the First Kind of People and their Esteemed Values and Way of Life.
