Jesse Helms dies at age 86

[Spurminator]

Whether you agreed with him or not, the guy stood up for what he believed in.

Two things I've never understood:

1. Why are we supposed to care when public figures die just because they're public figures?

2. Why are we supposed to respect those who always speak their mind and don't seem to have any idea of when to keep their mouths shut? I have more regard for racist bigots who manage to keep their bigotry relatively secret than those who parade and practically boast of their ignorance.

[2centsworth]

I know little about helms and what good or bad he did in his lifetime. However, our founding fathers were racist and are still some of the most respected people. Being a bigot is wrong, but doesn't mean someone can't do more good than bad. I'm sure that's the argument racist black muslims would make.

[sabar]

Helms is an idiot...in case you didn't know this, Ryan White wasn't a degenerate sexual who deservedly got a disease from his "sinful, disgusting" etc. sexual activities. Near as I can tell...he never engaged in sodomy of any kind...yet he died of AIDs nonthless. And Helms did not give a ...and he wouldn't even talk to the kids mother as he was fighting to prevent funding research for the disease that killed her completely innocent child.

And he claimed the only people that got it were sexuals and drug users...

That's not being a product of another time, that's not a difference of opinion...that's being ing ignorant. That's incomparably ignorant when the reality and truth is staring you right there in the face...and America, and Americans, aren't served by having someone that ing stupid making decisions that effect their lives.


He was a stupid stupid man...and this is easily provable by his stance that only sexuals and drug users were at risk to get HIV, when he had the living breathing and dying evidence that he was wrong staring him right there in the face.


There's no excusing his ignorance...he was just that, ignorant.


A child hemophilliac ends any possibility of this being a matter of opinion, a generational gap, a generalized truth about cultural, or ethnic tendencies...or anything of that sort. It wasn't a disease that only targets those gulty of sin...it targets everyone. Easily provable fact.

The guy was a complete idiot. You don't need s like that representing the people. You could pick a random person on these forums and they would make a smarter representative of the people.

Whottt for senator imo.

[jochhejaam]

Pardon me if I don't join in on the beating-the-dead-horse frenzy, but you all are doing just fine on your own.

I have no tolerance for racists, bigots, etc., and there is nothing that Helms and his ilk can do to reverse or undo the harm that their acts of blind, ignorant hatred have caused, but, it seems as if Helms finally started to "get it" in the end;

Helms coauthored a bill authorizing $600 million for international AIDS relief efforts. In 2002, Helms announced that he was ashamed to have done so little during his Senate career to fight the worldwide spread of AIDS and pledged to do more during his last few months in the Senate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesse_H...282003-2008.29



Carry on with the flaming.