Senator Helms came from a humble background. His campaign manager for some of his campaigns was a black man. He supported (financially) the Baker Hospital in Durham for research against Cerebal Palsy and he and his wife have adopted children with disabilities. Mr. Helms has done much more good than I will ever be able to accomplish. Mary Tyler Moore and Bono, amongst many others, regard him as a friend. They realize that while Mr. Helms may hate the sin, he does not hate the person.
Most people do not know the real man, Jesse Helms and many have incorrectly attributed false sayings to him. In my opinion, we were fortunate to have had such a man to represent us as a NC Senator from 1972 until his retirement. Many credit him as having been the force that brought Ronald Reagan to the White House.
May I suggest that you watch when UNC-TV re-runs their biography on the Senator. I believe I saw that it is scheduled to air again either late January or early February, 2008.
If you are familiar with the late Mr. Hugh Morton, of Grandfather Mountain, you might want to know of his story of how he was trying to raise money to save the lighthouse at Cape Hatteras. When he apporached the Senator about this, Mr. Helms went to his political group, the Congressional Club. Their members provided all of the money to save the ligthhouse by moving it. Private individuals anteed up the money rather than having your tax money being spent by a government agency to do it. This was in keeping with the philosophy of Mr. Helms.
Here is a link to UNC-TV's promotional material for the show:
http://www.unctv.org/biocon/jhelms/timeline.html
As this thread had to do with "Is NC Liberal", may I end with this first person observation of such?
I attended the University of North Carolina in the 1970's. UNC and Chapel Hill were and still are widely regarded as being of a liberal philosophy,
i.e.: Open to opposing ideas.
My car had a "Jesse" bumper sticker on it and I was in my parked car on a street adjacent to the campus, reading while waiting for my next class. A group of students were walking from campus, saw my sticker, started screaming something as to "hating" Jesse Helms and jumped onto my bumper and sticker. When I got out of my car, they ran off.
In my opinion, a lot of the people claiming to be liberal are actually intolerant leftist that hate. Specifically as to these people and the Senator, they operated a "Death Watch" on the web back in the late 1990's and early 2000 hoping and waiting for the Senator to die. Maybe these are the type of people that you have come to "know."
Quote:
Originally Posted by metro.m
Hold up. Didn't Jesse Helms hate black people? A lot of the sentiment I get about Jesse Helms from folks is "Good Riddance!" Most people I now despise the man.
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