Jesse Helms was a bad man because he disliked liberal college profs ...
and failed to pander to gays ... and failed to support baby killing ... and
never failed to support family values!
Posted on 07/12/2008 6:24:14 AM PDT by Zakeet
In death, Sen. Jesse Helms is being honored as a conservative hero. My question is why?
Yes, the six-term senator defined right-wing political stands against communists in Cuba, Nicaragua and the former Soviet Union. Yes, he blocked international treaties that limited U.S. sovereignty. And, yes, he was masterful in his use of direct mail to stir contributions to conservative causes. But "Senator No" also created an angry, scolding, close-minded face for the modern GOP, exactly opposite to the sunny optimism of Ronald Reagan.
Helms did not invite people into the party; to the contrary, he seemed to delight in excluding people and played on the anxieties of rural, older Southern whites. But if the modern Republican Party is to thrive it has to get out the welcome mat for young people, specifically the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population: Hispanics and Asians, as well as younger blacks who are more likely than their elders to be politically independent.
[Snip]
To be sure, for Helms the essence of North Carolina values was keeping taxes low, and fighting against big government. That is a great message. It won him a base of support.
But that base was rural working-class voters and white suburban male voters. He rallied this base by letting everyone know he disliked Chapel Hill intellectuals -- the kind of people who protested for equal rights for blacks and challenged U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He showed no compassion for gays coming out of the closet and women who wanted abortion rights; instead choosing to make them demons threatening family values. And he made blunt use of racial politics.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Jesse Helms was a bad man because he disliked liberal college profs ...
and failed to pander to gays ... and failed to support baby killing ... and
never failed to support family values!
I had extensive dealings with Senator Helms back in the 90s on issues relating to Indo China and its people. He was unfailingly helpful, supportive and courtly. I spent a great deal of time with him. He was a wonderful man. Interestingly, the other “most helpful” on those issues was Senator Paul Wellstone. The least helful? McCain.
"He rallied this base by letting everyone know he disliked Chapel Hill intellectuals -- the kind of people who protested for equal rights for blacks and challenged U.S. involvement in Vietnam. He showed no compassion for gays coming out of the closet and women who wanted abortion rights; instead choosing to make them demons threatening family values. And he made blunt use of racial politics.
The most infamous example was in his 1990 Senate campaign against Harvey Gantt, the former mayor of Charlotte and a black man. Helms ran an ad that showed white hands crumpling a rejection letter while a voice announced: "You needed that job. And you were best qualified. But they had to give it to a minority."
He also played the race card in 1984, in his campaign against Jim Hunt, the former governor and a white centrist in Southern politics. He ran an ad picturing Mr. Hunt with liberal, black leader Jesse Jackson. Helms also proudly reminded voters that he tried, with a 16-day filibuster, to stop the U.S. Senate from approving a federal holiday to honor black civil-rights leader, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr."
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Seems that Jesse Helms was 100% spot on. The only people that have a problem with these positions are liberals and they can go to hell.
RIP Jesse Helms...for standing strongly on those issues and not pandering to those votes as Williams would have had you, and would apparently have others do.
Huanny is usually pretty reasonable...for a lefty.
So much drivel, so little time.
The irony of Juan discussing Tony Snow this morning and what a decent man he was, and then we see this from Juan.
The libs are just plain trash. No other word for it.
It seems to me that Juan, along with many of the leftists on FOXNEWS, seems to have become more reasonable over the years. It’s almost like actually being around conservatives on a daily basis has shown him that there are some reasonable arguments on the right, that conservatives aren’t really the ‘foaming at the mouth haters’ the left portrays them as...
According to the left wackos.
According to Juan we have made “progress” beyond the “racist” good ole’ boy politics of Jesse Helms. Juan must be living in a cave. Just a few weeks ago the “black”/liberal/democRat/”intellectual” US Senator ‘Rat presidential candidate Barry OsmamaObama played the race card in a most cynical way. “Did I mention he was black?”
whats your point Juan?
We hold Stonewall Jackson in high regard down here, too...
You're against equal rights and the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr?
Jesse Helms was one of the last really true Conservatives as the term used to be used.
Only a liberal would see affirmative action and non support of a federal holiday for MLK as being against equal rights and MLK.
Exactly.
Juan Willams is a putz.
This was all done with a sly wink
In other words Jesse was a racist, homophobic
Juan, you are such a useful tool
BTW, Stonewall was Lee's general and Stonewall was very loyal to Lee.
I know the war has been fought and blood shed but I do believe had Stonewall not been shot and died, the South would have won the war. He was that great a general.
His tactics were studied by Rommel and Patton and are still taught at Westpoint today.
This is a Senator Helms thread so I will close again by saying this country lacks great men of your courage today.
R.I.P.
“In death, Sen. Jesse Helms is being honored as a conservative hero. My question is why? “
The left will not allow conservatives to have heros. All must be denegrated, even after death. All dead liberals are of course, heros, and Respublicans have too much class to call them what they were, scumbags and traitors.
He only served five terms
Helms did not invite people into the party
Well, then how did he get elected? When he first ran in 1972, Democrats in North Carolina enjoyed a three-to-one majority over Republicans.
Is Williams implying that such pictures are real art?
Helms stood up and showed the world what it means to be a conservative. I have to thank him for that.
De mortuis nil nisi bonum dicendum est
And it perhaps is just as well that Helms wasn't comfortble with that crowd. In 1972, Helms' first opponent, Rep. Nick Galifianakis (D-NC) had defeated incumbent Senator Everett Jordan (D-NC) in the primary by mobilizing a similar coalition: college students and faculty, blacks, and white collar suburbanites--a sort of southern-fried version of the "New Politics" coalition that formed the base of support for Senator George McGovern (D-SC), the Democratic Party's presidential standard bearer that year. We all know how well this coalition worked for Galifianakis and McGovern in the general election.
But in this begrudging eulogy one finds two men who stand as figures for the essence of American politics where it really and truly counts. On the one hand, the late Jesse Helms who despised everything hypocritical and destructive which he rightly saw tearing his country down. On the other hand, the author, Juan Williams, a black journalist prominently featured on television for his race rather than his intellect, who chronically puts the wrong end of the telescope to his eye. Jesse Helms got it right and Juan Williams invariably gets it wrong but Juan Williams has largely won.
Juan Williams is a figure for the left and how it sees the world. How it sees the world is a function of its being left wing-in other words it is not left wing because of the way it sees the world, but the other way around. Thus, Juan Williams and the Democrats see the world not as it is but as they need to see it to rationalize their ideology. Leftists are always in need to explain why the world does not accept their ideology and why things don't work out the way their ideology tells them they should. For the most part, their answer is to resort to claims of racism, although in more modern times they may resort to allegations of sexism, homophobia, and jingoism. But for the main part, leftists believe and trumpet that the signal difference between Democrats and Republicans, between left and right, is that we are racists and they are not.
Thus Juan Williams believes that the right in general and especially Jesse Helms in particular successfully manipulates an empty headed electorate by resorting to racism. Williams never acknowledges that it is the left that plays the race card, in fact, Williams has even done so in this piece.
: We can stipulate to the truth of part of what Williams no doubt intended as a criticism of Helms:
"he disliked Chapel Hill intellectuals -- the kind of people who protested for equal rights for blacks and challenged U.S. involvement in Vietnam."
But Helms objection to these intellectuals was not limited to equal rights for blacks but for the intellectuals support of preferred rights for blacks. That was, after all, the gravamen of his campaign ad about affirmative action which is a perfectly legitimate position to take. Indeed, one can persuasively argue that the racism lies not in Helms position but with Juan Williams' position supporting preferential rights based on race. But Helms also objected to the intellectuals because he knew what they were trying to do to his society. He was perfectly within its constitutional, legal, and (dare I say it?) his moral rights to do so.
Jesse Helms saw the world as it was, he had the right end of the telescope to his eye, he knew what the intellectuals were trying to do to him and his way of life. A man of vast courage, Helms fought against the intellectuals wherever he could bring his fire to bare. Sadly, he lost.
That means that the intellectuals had their way and were able to change America in a way that is hateful to Jesse Helms. The tentacles of these intellectuals extend into every institution in America. They have been indoctrinated students not only in the universities like Chapel Hill but all the way down to kindergarten. They have infected our churches so that, for example, the national Council of Churches is virtually a Marxist organization. They have taken over all our great foundations like Ford and Rockefeller. Other leftists with intellectual pretensions like George Soros achieve similar results through more modern institutions operating largely through the Internet. They dominate the organs of written opinion and visual news and opinion. All of this was accomplished following the mandate of The Frankfurt School so that Juan Williams could find grounds to gloat while playing the race card for one last trump:
Republican leaders in the Tar Heel State and nationally would be wise to tip their hats to Jesse Helms as a man of the distant past who lived long beyond his political era. But the greatest wisdom will be to resist any temptation to make a hero out of him. The demographic shifts sweeping America mean that the key to building a successful 21st-century GOP will be a decisive turn away from Helms's use of the politics of exclusion. (emphasis supplied)
Much of this was accomplished because liberals manage to contrive an atmosphere in which Republicans, like Jesse Helms, are racists. Because Republicans, like Jesse Helms, are racists and they, of course, are not.
Excellent post!
And Ted Kennedy is no hero to us either.
He has supported the killing of babies for a long time — He is a Catholic in Name Only.
“Hosted by Stormfront”?
“Join MLK Discussion Forum” on Stormfront?
Screw you juan. My favorite post someone did I have rocks in my garden smarter then Juan.
He's the hero of Chappaquiddick.
Nice post thank you.
Well, if the same info is available from credible sources, then link it instead. White supremacists discussing MLK is hardly what I would call honest, informed discussion, and while it is important that people are made aware of the existence of such neanderthals as the inhabitants of Stormfront, using them as a reference to illustrate some alleged plagiarism, communist leanings or (gasp!) name change that hadn’t been legally completed does not exactly strengthen your case.
As far as the basic thesis is concerned -- that Helms was a man of his time who had virtues and some of the faults of his era, but who can't serve as a perfect model for his party in the future if it wants to make a comeback -- it's not really that controversial. The title will get people going, and so will some of Williams's language, but the basic message isn't as inflammatory as some people are making it.
This is one of those glass-half-empty glass-half-full triangulation things where how people position themselves and the language that they use in doing so become more important than what they actually say.
What’s your opinion on the Helms anti-affirmative action TV ad?
One thing people objected to was that it was so obviously targeted at one group as against another "You wanted that job ... and they gave it to a minority" or words to that effect. If you were a minority you'd find it hard to support the ad, even if you agreed with Helms about quotas. There were other ways to make the same point that wouldn't have been subject to the same criticism.
But I don't think it was more offensive or distorting than a lot of other ads you see on television, though I doubt Democrat politicians who put dubious ads on the tube will ever be called to account the way Helms was.
Re: Helms & the swimmer, Ann Coulter said it perfectly:
"When I worked in the Senate in the '90s, the two senators famous for being absolute princes to work for were Sen. Helms and -- it pains me to tell you this, so you know it has to be true -- Sen. Teddy Kennedy. (He was so nice to his staffers, he frequently offered them rides home in his car after parties.)"
I think it’s great! Here’s the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIyewCdXMzk
Google is your friend. I’m not ...necessarily.
Who created that image? The enemedia did. Senator Helms was more susceptible to it than the “sunny optimist” Reagan, but that was not the image that HE created. Once again the media mistakes their own perception or desired propaganda aims for truth.
LOL....Well there are posters here that think yer female if ya reference Martha Stewart or Oprah, there are posters here that think your black if ya reference the NAACP and there are posters here that think if ya reference the PLO your a terrorist. And such posters are idgits when they do such.
You just happened too find one.......:o)
You and I both know that it is off limits. Any candidate who runs an ad opposing affirmative action will be accused of "racism", so only a rare courageous politician like Helms ever does so. Even though opposition to affirmative action is popular, conservative candidates flee from the issue because they don't have the guts to fight the bogus racism charge. This is also why so few GOP candidates are running anti-same-sex "marriage" ads, even though voters in state after state have voted lopsidedly on the conservative side on this issue. Candidates know that if they run an ad on this issue the media will sweep down on them with accusations of "homophobia", and only a few Helms-type candidates have the courage to stand up to it.
One thing people objected to was that it was so obviously targeted at one group as against another "You wanted that job ... and they gave it to a minority" or words to that effect. If you were a minority you'd find it hard to support the ad, even if you agreed with Helms about quotas.
But that's what affirmative action does. It deprives members of one group of achievements they have earned on merit in order to advance members of another group that didn't perform as well. The reason people were so furious about the Helms ad was that it was accurate. No one could possibly challenge the ad in terms of honesty. Instead, the argument was that we should all pretend that affirmative action doesn't discriminate against whites because if we tell the truth about it, it might anger the groups unfairly benefiting from those policies. And since those groups are in the upper PC hierarchy, while white males are at the very bottom, we were all expected to adopt a taboo against telling the truth on this issue. Helms violated the taboo so he became a heretic.
There were other ways to make the same point that wouldn't have been subject to the same criticism.
Okay, give us an example of an anti-affirmative action ad that the media would approve of.
But I don't think it was more offensive or distorting than a lot of other ads you see on television, though I doubt Democrat politicians who put dubious ads on the tube will ever be called to account the way Helms was.
But Helms' ad wasn't distorting at all, and it was only offensive to someone who objects to an accurate depiction of affirmative action programs. Do affirmative action plans discriminate against whites and males on behalf of other groups? Yes, they do. How could they be opposed on any other grounds?
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