I think if Helms were still in the Senate, he would be in the same position as Byrd is now... viewed as someone who is apologetic and trying to make amends for past behavior.

Byrd has only come along further, I believe, because our society has been increasingly insisting -- more and more recently, up to the very present -- that our previously unreconstructed racist leaders shape the fuck up

Byrd has been forced to modernize, even in these half a dozen years since Helms has been retired. If Helms were in still there, he'd be facing the same pressures.








[Edited on July 10, 2008 at 3:07 PM. Reason : ]

7/10/2008 3:04:11 PM

Quote :

"Had it not been for Helms in 1976 delivering NC to Reagan, we may have very well never gotten the 8 years of Ronald Reagan."

i fail to see how Helms did anything good in this situation

7/10/2008 3:39:14 PM

yes, the 8 years of Ronald Reagan was hell in America.

7/10/2008 3:47:15 PM

Yeah, he did one hell of a job at widening the gap between the rich and the poor!

GO REAGAN!!!!!!

7/10/2008 3:55:17 PM

Helms was a great advocate for North Carolina farmers. He represented North Carolina very well in most regards, and I honestly believe he really did care about the concerns of North Carolinian's. On a personal level, I think he was a real monster. Regardless, he served the state well.

7/10/2008 3:59:05 PM

Quote :

"North Carolina doesn’t need a zoo, just put a fence around Chapel Hill."

7/11/2008 7:05:58 AM

Quote :

"He quit rather than lower flag for Helms Ryan Teague Beckwith, Staff Writer Comment on this story RALEIGH - L.F. Eason III gave up the only job he'd ever had rather than lower a flag to honor former U.S. Sen. Jesse Helms. Eason, a 29-year veteran of the state Department of Agriculture, instructed his staff at a small Raleigh lab not to fly the U.S. or North Carolina flags at half-staff Monday, defying a directive sent to all state agencies by Gov. Mike Easley. When a superior ordered the lab to follow the directive, Eason decided to retire rather than pay tribute to Helms. After several hours' delay, one of Eason's employees hung the flags at half-staff. The brouhaha began late Sunday night, when Eason e-mailed eight of his employees in the state standards lab, which calibrates measuring equipment used on things as widely varied as gasoline and hamburgers. "Regardless of any executive proclamation, I do not want the flags at the North Carolina Standards Laboratory flown at half staff to honor Jesse Helms any time this week," Eason wrote just after midnight, according to e-mail messages released in response to a public records request. He told his staff that he did not think it was appropriate to honor Helms because of his "doctrine of negativity, hate, and prejudice" and his opposition to civil rights bills and the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. Eason said in an interview Tuesday that he did not typically lower the flag himself, but that, as head of the lab, he supervised the technician who did. He also trained new employees on proper flag etiquette, including a one-person folding technique he learned in Boy Scouts. When the lab opened Monday morning, the flags were not out at all. An employee called Eason's boss, Stephen Benjamin, who worked in another building in Raleigh. About 10:45 a.m., Benjamin told one of Eason's co-workers to put the flags at half-staff. Another of Eason's superiors later drove by the lab to make sure the flags were up properly. No one in the Governor's Office was aware of any time in recent memory when a state employee refused to lower a flag. Brian Long, a spokesman for the Agriculture Department, said Eason's refusal was unexpected. "We've never had any conversations like that," he said. An ultimatum In a string of e-mail messages with his superiors, Eason was told he could either lower the flags or retire effective immediately. Though he's only 51, Eason chose to retire, although he pleaded several times to be allowed to stay at the lab. Eason, who had worked for the Agriculture Department since graduating from college, was paid $65,235 a year as the laboratory manager. Several people, including his wife, argued to Eason that the flags belonged to the state, as did the lab. But Eason said he felt a strong sense of ownership. Eason and a previous boss had sketched out the building's rough design on a napkin at the Atlanta airport in 1984 after attending a national conference on weights and measures. He then worked to get funding for it in the state budget, and he recently helped snag state money to study building another lab. "I designed and built that lab," he said. "Even though technically the bricks and mortar belong to the state of North Carolina, I feel very strongly that everything that comes out of there is my responsibility." It was not the first time Eason felt uneasy about lowering the flag. A registered Democrat who frequently votes a split ticket, he said he had no problems lowering the flag for former Sen. Terry Sanford or President Reagan. But he remembers wondering whether he would be willing to lower the flag after President Nixon's death. He never had to make that decision, since it rained both days. Monday was sunny. And Eason was out of a job."

http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/politicians/helms/story/1135443.html

I understand the guy's sentiment, but he stepped way outside of the box.

7/14/2008 9:38:31 PM

out of line? out of the box? i disagree --- that's Civil Disobedience 101: he stood for his principles.... he paid the consequences. i think what he did was commendable.

for one thing, he really needed to get another job anyhow. Nobody should work the same place they started out of college for their entire life.

7/14/2008 10:13:48 PM

Quote :

"that's Civil Disobedience 101: he stood for his principles.... he paid the consequences."

7/14/2008 10:16:19 PM

meh...I don't think this rises to the level of commendable civil disobedience, particularly for the workplace. He picked the wrong forum.

[Edited on July 14, 2008 at 10:21 PM. Reason : ]

7/14/2008 10:19:29 PM

Quote :

"yes, the 8 years of Ronald Reagan was hell in America"

You probably werent even born when Iran Contra and Rex 84 came out

he "cut and ran" out of Lebanon

and legalized millions of illegal immigrants

7/14/2008 10:24:23 PM

The Reagan Years.

meh. It wasnt too hellish ...

... for a white, heterosexual, middle-class, 2-parent family homeowning family in the suburbs.

the resta y'all can go eat shit, tho. And dont you dare say "condom"

7/14/2008 10:31:51 PM

Do you ever listen to yourself, joe_schmoe? Ever?

I mean. Come on. Really.

I'm not a conservative person by any measures, but you're just ridiculous.

Are you this bitter in real life?

7/15/2008 1:51:49 AM

no, but i play an egotistical self-absorbed asshole on TV

7/15/2008 1:55:04 AM

Okay, good.

Your name wouldn't be Hugh Laurie, would it?

7/15/2008 1:58:07 AM

made an appearance in one of tonight’s eps of The Last Dance

just another excuse to post fuck Jesse Helms

5/3/2020 11:07:25 PM