Any man's death diminishes me and I don't send to know for whom the bell tolls, but I'll make an exception in Helms' case.

Wonder how many have volunteered to drive a stake through his heart -- er, hort -- to make sure the f**ker is dead.

Well I do have something good to say about Jesse. In 1984 I became so disgusted with his rants I decided to quit smoking to at least cut off my payments to the tobacco industry that kept him rolling in the green. If not for Jesse, I might still be burning 2 packs a day.

And to think, I never thanked him. Thanks to Jesse I am a much healthier, and richer progressive.

Jesse Helms variety of diseases tells me he died by rotting from the inside out, reflective on the type of policitian he chose to be.

He was heartless, cruel, stupid, unmanly, and immoral.

Good riddance!

Their hero died on the birthday of America, as did Jefferson and Madison. How can we put a spin on this? By suggesting the spirit of America - the intangible soul that makes the sum of the parts greater than the whole -- decided that it was time for Jesse to go.

Yeah, it's nasty, but apropos.

There is a button/knob on yout TV.

I assume you even HAVE a TV.

Have someone explain its function to you.

After they spend so much frustrating time attempting to get you to understand that, ask them to explain about not reading that with which you disagree to the point of attmepting to be a moral elitist.

I'd bet that you fail at both regularly.

zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Last night I dreamt the last person Jesse Helms saw, as he started his journey to 'White Christians-only Hell', was a black nurse shouting into the old cretin's ear: "The good news is you're going to white hell but the bad news is you won't live a few more months to see a black man in the White House. Goodbye Mr Helms, if you get a chance to speak to Strom Thurmond down there (after he's taken his pee-pee out of your mouth) don't forget to tell him about the USA getting a black president".

...if he spreads the amount of hate Helms did. There should be a law against claiming a total bastard was a "good" guy in his personal life because there's no way he could have not spread his bigotry and hatred to his family and friends. Simple math--if a person does more bad things than good, they are a bad person, period.

If you're an Ike Republican, then you're left of the left today. The pendulum has shifted so far that left isn't even centrist.

Like you, I think most people are evil. I know I am. Unlike you, I don't believe in God. So, I should assert that I think most people are bad, since evil is tangled in theology. I think that most of us, in certain circumstance, would man a watchtower at Auschwitz, would swing a machete in Rwanda, and would rape a man with a broomstick in one of Saddam's rape rooms. It is our common proclivity for evil that has me supporting your position in this thread. I too want to publicly denigrate Sen. Helms. I would if it weren't for your thin, fine line, which delineates decency.

He did more to destroy this country than anyone other person! He represented all that is evil in our society! All that is detestable in the south! I can only hope there actually is a God! And God has prepared a special spot in hell for bigots like him. He and Jerry Falwell should get along just fine!

Thank you, sir, for being so gracious.

We will have a black President over his dead body, and one the product of "miscegenation," too.

I voted against Helms twice. He was personally gracious, amiable, and collegial. He was politically vicious, grubby, and bigoted. I am sad that his death got "reported" on the fourth of July, because Jesse Helms the man was a nice grandfather, a pleasant old man, and having his personal (unobjectionable) death tied to national politics (where he was nasty and mean) once more plays into the theater of things like the Jesse Helms Foundation.

I had forgotten he was alive. Now he's not. It makes no difference.

Today, the world has improved by his death greatly.

Um...how? As someone I'm sure Mr Helms would have despiesed (being both Black and gay, The horror!) I'll admit that I'm not breaking down in uncontrollable sobs and holding candlelight vigils for him. Nevertheless, I really don't get why I should cheer and glorify in Helmes' death? As this one poster put it, how HAS the world been improved by his death?

Better for the rest of us, at least.

"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."

--Clarence Darrow

I am absolutely delighted that Jesse Helms is no longer walking the earth, spreading his hatred and fear.

Helms is a member of an elite short list of people who have come close to bringing me to religion, simply because it would be so gratifying to believe that there's a special room in some place called "hell" where they can join the likes of Jerry Falwell and Richard Nixon on a barbed spit inserted up their nether regions until it comes out their hateful mouths, and slowly rotate for eternity over an unimaginably hot fire.

Alas, I'll have to settle for them being simply dead. But that is enough. There is joy in the fact that they'll no longer be polluting humanity with their perverted ideas.

My own beliefs tell me that I ought to feel guilty about feeling joy at the death of another, but I justify my current feelings of delight with the thought that it is the final shutting off of the font of ignorant hatred that spewed from his very being every time he opened his mouth that I celebrate, not the passing of the man himself.

If I'm deceiving myself, so be it. Like Helms himself, I'm only human. It is only human to feel joy when something which hurts horribly is removed from the scene, and what came out of Helms' mouth was a thorn in the side of humanity.