Happy Birthday, USA!!!

Rot in Hell, Jesse Helms!!!

the funny thing is that my opinion of jefferson has fallen since i was in my twenties (read about his trampling of civil liberties, abuse of martial law and disdain for the judicial process while president) while my opinion of helms actually rose somewhat over that same period. no mortal is that good or that bad. rest in peace.

I never think ill of anybody, but the passing of this hateful bigot swells my heart with glee. He has been a lightening rod of intolerance for far too long and his passing is greeted here, at least, with a sigh of satisfaction. Finally, this bastard will shut the fck up!

...as we can tell by the (sometimes hypocritical) posts left here by the kinder, gentler (and generally superior in all ways) left.

Jesse Helms is gone. The thing should speak for itself. Oddly, the invective so far is less than showed up at the sudden, untimely passing of Tim Russert, who apparently was an atheist, leftist version of the Antichrist.

No, the world is a more fucked-up place and every time someone dies the proof becomes more clear, at least here at Salon.

Me, I was raised on that silly-ass "If you can't say something nice..."etc., and of course, also on John Donne's tolling bell.

Civility: the right has trampled on it; the left has proven it can do a better job of trampling, just as with everything else.

Stooping to conquer: a really attractive way to go.

"Your tax dollars are being used to pay for grade-school classes that teach our children that CANNIBALISM, WIFE-SWAPPING and MURDER of infants and the elderly are acceptable behavior."

-- Fund raising mailer, 1996

"Homosexuals are weak, morally sick wretches."

-- 1995 radio broadcast

"They should ask their parents if it would be all right for their son or daughter to marry a Negro."

-- In response to Duke University students holding a vigil after Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, 1968

"All Latins are volatile people. Hence, I was not surprised at the volatile reaction."

-- After Mexicans protested his visit in 1986

He sang 'Dixie' to Senator Carol Moseley-Braun in an elevator in one of the Senate office buildings, specifically, he said, to taunt her, to "make her cry".

Jesse Helms is dead; that's nice.

I will not miss Jesse Helms one bit.

He basically started the practice in 1984. Look, I'm not going to revel in the mans death, but anybody who takes money from the tobacco lobby while condemning the "evils" of homosexuality speaks for themselves in the hypocrite department. If any right wingers try and honor him as some kind of "patriot", I will kindly point this out. I think that's really all anyone needs to do.

What would you have folks do?

Black folks?

Gay folks?

Teachers who didn't teach kids to eat their grandparents, but were accused of teaching cannibalism by Helms?

Perhaps some dancing in the street accompanied by firing guns into the air would accessorize the occasion nicely.

Other than that, for black folks, gay folks (and you assume I am neither?), or just plain people who deplored most of Mr. Helms' political career, perhaps some civil discourse about the remarkably awful effect of his behavior as a politician and how it reflected the pervasive ignorance of the people who repeatedly elected him -- and why this should have even been so -- might be a more constructive use of bandwith than simply behaving like the savage that Helms, himself, often was.

No one owes anyone a eulogy here; but we do owe each other at least the illusion of being better than the man we're discussing.

Rolling in our own waste hardly accomplishes that simple aim.

When I worked in D.C. I had occasion to meet Helms several times and he was always a polite even courtly man, with that in mind, my condolences to his family.

That said, the man was a monster who stands out as one of the worst political leaders of the last quarter of the 20th century. Helms did enormous damage to the tenor of public debate and he gave comfort and aid to some of the most reprehensible elements of our society.

While I ascribe no real significances to it, I am struck by the fact that two of the GOP's strongest advocates for ignorance and anti-intellectualism (Ronald Reagan of course being the other), passed the final years of their lives in states of full-blown dementia, literally without a thought in their heads. Rough justice indeed.

"Compromise, hell! ... If freedom is right and tyranny is wrong, why should those who believe in freedom treat it as if it were a roll of bologna to be bartered a slice at a time?"

-Wonder what he would've thought about the FISA bill?

"I will never be silent about the death of those who cannot speak for themselves"

-Like the thousands who died under the right-wing dictatorships he supported?

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As for the person who said people like him are a part of this country, "like it or not," I'm afraid I don't like it one bit, and I'm sure they don't like sharing a country with us either. The whole point of a constitutional democracy is that you're all supposed to at least agree on some basic fundamental principles upon which the country is founded. But 200+ years later, we're still fighting the battle of the Enlightenment while the rest of the Western world has moved on.

If you're a gay, black man as you coyly suggest and you still muster compassion and restraint, I tip my hat to you. If I could doff my hair, I'd do that too.

Even if you're a staight, white guy, I still admire your restraint.

And I agree that this is a moment to discuss his mean-spiritedness and consequent divisiveness and how that's being replicated here.

The correct phrase is: De mortuis nil nisi bonum.

It would appear that gays are pretty viciously intolerant towards their opponents.

Often those on the right like to point out when Dems harshly disparage or insult people like Senator Helms that so-called agents of tolerance aren't being very tolerant.

I've often thought about this charge, and I have to say that I don't buy it.

Indulge me for a moment: are the right-wingers who argue that the left is hypocritical because we don't suffer hatemongers like Helms actually arguing that as purported 'agents of tolerance,' we lefties should tolerate being insulted and denigrated not only for our beliefs, but in many cases for having been born at all?

Tolerance doesn't mean sainthood. It doesn't mean suffering the rantings and ravings of those who rile up people that would wish us harm.

And don't kid yourself, AJCalhoun. The people that lynched blacks in the South shared Jesse Helms' views on "negroes." The people that crucified Matthew Shepard on that fence in Wyoming shared Jesse Helms' views on "sodomites." And you can damn well bet that the people who shoot and kill abortion doctors feel the way Helms felt about "baby-killers."

So no, I'm not going to tolerate those who wish me and my kind harm.

And if you don't think that Helms and his kind DID wish me and my kind harm, you're wrong.

Tolerance is not a suicide pact.