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“Happy 4th of July! Jesse Helms Has Died!”
11:18AM ON
07/05/2008
BY
Ariel Werner
Or so read the headline yesterday on one of my favorite blogs, History Is a Weapon. And when you look at the late Senator’s resume, he’s left us little reason to mourn. Here are a few of his most remarkable achievements:
- Fighting integration;
- Opposing Martin Luther King day;
- the Helms-Burton act, the centerpiece of the embargo against Cuba;
- Disputing ALL Affirmative Action programs;
- Voting to bail out the savings and loan industry AND to slash school lunches for impoverished children, medical care for disabled veterans, prescription drugs for the elderly, and wages for working families;
- Hating all gay people;
- Supporting apartheid in South Africa;
- Routinely fighting against AIDS research from the beginning, blaming people suffering from the disease for it;
- Leading the fight to discontinue Pell Grants for inmates;
- And, in 1993, singing Dixie to the first African American senator, Carol Mosely-Braun, and promising to make her “cry.”
I think HIAW sums it up well, when they proclaim: “Hell burns hotter tonight.” Want some more inspiring food for thought? Check out “The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro,” a speech given by Frederick Douglass in Rochester on July 5, 1852.
July 5th, 2008 at 11:32AM
JOE BERNSTEIN Says:
As I said on another blog,he wasn’t much good,but he did oppose Ruth Bader Ginsburg,the worst judge in recent memory who lied to the Senate to get confirmed and who routinely sits on cases where she has a serious conflict of interest.Other than that,Helms generally sucked.
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July 5th, 2008 at 1:22PM
Ariel Werner Says:
Joe, out of curiosity, what are these conflicts of interest? For example, is it a conflict of interest for her to sit in on cases pertaining to reproductive rights because she has a uterus? I can’t think of anything else…
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July 5th, 2008 at 4:03PM
JOE BERNSTEIN Says:
Ariel-Did I resort to a nasty remark to make my point?
The conflict I referred to has nothing to do with a particular issue.It is that she sits on cases where the ACLU is a litigant.She previously served in a POLICYMAKING position in that organization at a national level.If she had merely been a member,no problem.She should recuse herself from cases involving the ACLU as a litigant.If you have a disagreement with what I said,please don’t use the tactic of finding someone else that has/had a conflict to deflect from Ginsburg.
In addition to the above,during her confirmation hearings,Ginsburg stated that she was undecided about the death penalty.her actions have proven that a lie.
Ginsburg has a tendency to want to impose international law on American jurisprudence.She is not alone in that on this Court.That though,is just my opinion and doesn’t come under the category of the first two points above.
I’d like to say one thing to you and Ari-I’m 62 and I’ve been around awhile and seen a thing or two-I don’t talk down or make smart remarks to either of you on this blog.Ari recently brought up the”scarlet letter”reference to me in a discussion of a blog entry you posted on an idiotic legislator in Massachusetts-I answered him very seriously.There is really no need to see how clever one can be-it diminishes one’s argument.
That said I have been pretty abusive about Steven Brown-in print and directly to him.He’s not a young person and I’ve found there are some folks I just can’t be civil with.
Believe it or not,I think you are very intelligent and sincere.When I was your age I was also enthusiastic about what I believed(which was much different than what you seem to believe)-I eventually came down to Earth.
I am not driven by doctrine.I take each issue on its own.If David Segal is right,as he was about the probation bill,I’ll say so-I don’t get a demerit for that from anyone because I think for myself.
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July 5th, 2008 at 4:11PM
Ariel Werner Says:
Joe, I don’t feel that my above comment was nasty. Perhaps cynical, but I was genuinely asking you what were the conflicts of interest mentioned in your comment and admitting the limits of my own knowledge on the subject matter. While the blogosphere is clearly a forum of irreverence and impertinence (as you clearly know), people can actually be earnest sometimes, and I wish you wouldn’t look for signs of disdain in the comments so flippantly posted on this blog. And there is no one who should be excluded from the terms of civility, as you claim to do with Steven Brown.
Also, didn’t you bring Ari’s personal life, his father, into a recent comment? That seems more out of line than Ari or my sarcastic commentary, Mr. Bernstein.
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July 5th, 2008 at 4:30PM
JOE BERNSTEIN Says:
I found that Ari’s father was a child psychiatrist on either this or another blog when someone mentioned his father’s meeting with Gordon Fox.I actually was just suggesting to Ari that he since has has a professional in the field right in his family he could find out the facts first hand.It’s not like Bob Kerr’s column didn’t make news.I wasn’t sure if they were even relatives until someone gave him an online comment about it.I had very little idea of what job related knowledge my father ever had.It just never came up.
But,do you see the conflict as I explained it?
Wash your hands frequently to avoid picking up stuff at court.I’m serious.I handled many people with active TB as an INS agent and other diseases and never got sick-I think years of riding the filthy,overcrowded NY subways probably gave me plenty of antibodies.
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July 5th, 2008 at 4:34PM
Ariel Werner Says:
Here are some facts for you: http://www.csom.org/pubs/mythsfacts.html
Harsh sex offender registry laws do not make us safer. They give us a false sense of security and make us forget that those closest to us are those most likely to take advantage of us. Harsh sex offender registry laws preclude reentry and force offenders into rural areas where they are hard to keep track of.
Furthermore, not all psychiatrists would share your tough-on-crime stance re: this issue, and it is wrong to assume that Ari’s father would do so.
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July 5th, 2008 at 8:10PM
JOE BERNSTEIN Says:
You seem to read a lot between the lines.i have exactly no clue what Ari’s father would think about tough sex offender laws,but I am sure he is quite familiar with the aftermath since he treats children.
I will share something with you-a female relative of mine was raped repeatedly over a period of time by her father-he was married into the family and I never knew him-he was thrown out of the house.In the 1950’s this was the way it was handled.It ruined her life permanently and she had done nothing to deserve that.
I think that being tough on certain offenders is the right thing to do.Maybe you don’t.I am really not concerned with the “reentry”of sexual predators into society.They have no place there.
If you get the time look up the Megan Kanka case in New Jersey.Maybe you are already familiar with it.It was the unregualted “dumping”of a sex offender named Jesse Tamendequas(sp?)into a residential that resulted in the rape-murder of a little girl.He got the death penalty,but unfortunately due to the irresponsibility of the NJ Supreme Court he will live out his days having a warm bed and plenty to eat.Nice.The little girl will remain dead.This is the category of crime I can never get used to-the victimization of children,sexual or not.Jessica’s Law is of course based on the recent case where the offender received the death sentence.Florida does the right thing in these cases.
I have a war buddy who is a retired psychiatrist in Massachusetts and he is of the opinion that sexuial predators can’t be expected not to re-offend.
We can go round and round on this subject all day long.You have make up your own mind.
My attitude is that no system offers guaranteed security,but if only some children are spared the horror of being raped,it’s worthwhile to track these people 24/7.
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July 5th, 2008 at 8:45PM
Mike Licht Says:
The late senator deserves a fitting memorial. See http://notionscapital.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/jesse-helms/
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