The price of progress in a democracy is that you can never actually overthrow the People, who rule. So, when you win a great revolutionary struggle, such as the civil rights movement, the defeated opposition remains in place, with a claim on power.

So, it was in the South in the 1970's. The former segregationist, white-supremacist politicians surrendered, shrugged their shoulders and moved on. The segregationist regime had been overthrown in law and policy. But, the politicians, who had ridden popular support for the defeated regime, into office, went on after defeat.

The good news is that Helms et alia were not revanchists. That's the upside to functioning democracy -- real changes take a long time, but they are, in the end, real changes, because even the opposition changes.

The Republicans are going to have to work awfully hard to construct a usable history. The only times they've really succeeded is when they act like the Democratic mainstream (opening China, Reagan's support for arms control, etc). Actual conservatism doesn't have a lot going for it.

Sometimes I want to become a Republican just because actual Republicans are so terrible, There has to be an opposition party for Democrats, but why does it have to represent the worst aspects of society: bigotry, rank, bullying, and corruption? I wish the Democrat party's opponents were more like a European liberal party. Something to check Democrats, but not completely against the idea of progress.

There has to be an opposition party for Democrats, but why does it have to represent the worst aspects of society: bigotry, rank, bullying, and corruption?

Because bigots, bullies, and the corrupt (and their toadies) have a right to representation in the American system of government, just like everyone else.

If only we could elect a new people! One point for Brecht.

I'd prefer it if some interests were unrepresented. I'm sure child molesters might want their voices heard, but that's crazy talk.

Ed. Note: There's a difference between "pabulum" and "pablum."

what are those of us outside the conservative movement to think?

I think the answer is clear. We (or I at least) think that the movement is made up of a bunch of racist assholes, who are primarily motivated by anger, spite, racism, and (for the past 10 years or so) stupidity.

I think we often think that becuase the movement is made up of a bunch of racist, stupid assholes.

And Hillary wanted that job, but the party had to give it to a minority.

helms stood for everyones individual equal freedom..it has always been the left that has categorized people by race, and then punished or rewarded them based on their political support.

After the racism and sexism we just witnessed in droves coming from the Democrat party this primary to claim it is the right or conservatives who are racists is to sleep walk through history.

The Democrat Party has been the home of the slave holder the home of the KKK, the home of the segregationist and the home of the bigot.

You really need to do your homework.

"""As an aide to the 1950 Senate campaign of North Carolina Republican candidate Willis Smith, Helms reportedly helped """

So how many lies does the left have to tell to try to smear a dead man??

The posts you lin to make the ridiculous claim that Helms was a Republican working on a Republicans campaign in 1950 and was using racism to win against a Democrat.

The actual TRUTH is Helms was a DEMOCRAT and Willis Smith, whom he worked for was a DEMOCRAT.

Helms didn't even become a Republican until the 1970s and it wasn't over race it was over the Democrats plans to turn Vietnam and SouthWest Asia over to the Communists.

try to get one fact straight, your sounding like the Obama campaign.

Democrats greatest atribute is projection of all their faults on others. They scream about bigotry, corruption, etc. etc of the Republicans but won't lift a finger to clean up their own house first.

Was Helm public career marked with more racism then say a Robert Byrd?

Look at the history of the Democrat party and the KKK. Look at the Democrats who filbustered the civil rights act and voting rights act. And evn look at Bill Clinton.

As any of Jesse Helms fans will tell you, Jesse Helms was always the quintessential conservative. I don't think anyone disputes that.

The man lived, by all accounts, a bad life, having failed the great moral tests of his time, started off race-baiting and continued race-baiting and making violent threats against Democrats well into his elderly years. Even in retirement, he remained silent as his country advocated the use of torture.

He was a great example of conservatism, and also a warning that conservatism puts you down the path to moral failure. While Bruce Wilder is correct-- Helms did not spend his life trying to "turn back the clock" to return to the immoral ideas he tried to keep in place, on a personal level, Helms hurt himself and ruined his own life by never repenting from his moral failures. And in the sense that Helms has admirers to this day who might make the mistake of imitating him, he served as a poor example for the next generation of policymakers.

Exactly why the republican party needs to go and the Democratic party needs to split.

Like Matt, I'm a bit surprised to see conservatives heaping praise on Jesse Helms.

Because Conservatives above all else want to be consistent and Helms was exactly that. Right or wrong, moral or immoral, just or unjust have no bearing on their desire to be seen as consistent.

Ooh. Ooh. I have got a good assignment desk idea.

Hey, I am seeing an awful lot of this "democrats are racist because they opposed desegregation in the south before realignment" meme. It is so idiotic, that I can't imagine it doesn't have its origin in some fairly identifiable piece of right-wing propaganda. I think it might be worthwhile to root around in the rightwing noise machine and try to genealogize their more popular memes. This would be a good candidate.

As far as Helms goes, I am tempted to say that after death is the only time its safe to hate someone, but I guess I am not sure how I feel about that yet. I would probably want the trolls of the world to "put partisanship aside" and mourn with me if say, Angela Davis, or some other figure whose work is not entirely defensible, but who nonetheless acted on values and impulses that rendered her a fellow traveler.

So, RIP Jesse, you stone cold racist motherfucker.

Who was filibustering the civil rights act about four decades ago?

I obviously know the answer to that. My real question is why do you think either party or labeled movement can win a debate over which has the most racism in its past?

Another salient example of why young Mr. Klein still has a lot to learn about our nation's history.

Keep studying Ezra, but be warned: the more you keep at it, the more conservative you will become.

After all, Novak started out as a liberal too.

Keep studying Ezra, but be warned: the more you keep at it, the more conservative you will become.

I've no doubt that I will be considered "conservative" by plenty of people when I'm 60 or so: mostly because society will have changed in such a way that I will be shocked at it and want things to stay in the state it was when the liberal changes I wanted in my younger days were established.

Conservatism is, after all, just the lionization of yesterday's radicals. And when we are yesterday's radicals, we'll be comparatively conservative, too.

What this has to do with Jesse Helms, I don't know: the man failed the great moral tests of his youth and never, as far as we can tell, managed to acquire any better sense as he aged.

I am old enough to remember seeing "whites only" signs during my childhood, and I recall that some of the most virulent opposition to desegregation came from Democrats such as Orval Faubus, George Wallace and Lester Maddox.

I am proud that my party has moved beyond that chapter in our history, and I am disgusted that former Democrats such as Strom Thurmond and Jesse Helms carried on their racist tradition as Republicans, but we should not rewrite history.

De mortuis nil nisi bonum, Ezra?

The liberal equivalent would be a Communist fellow traveler who later in life dedicated himself to...

Would it really, though? Because the difference I see in the two cases is that in Communism, one could be naively swept up in someone else's story of how this new ideology could make America a better place. (Yeah, you could point to Russia and say "dude, Communism is clearly hell on Earth," but on a history has to a certain extent vindicated those who claimed its failures were not communism per se and more Russia. Heck, capitalism today doesn't look particularly awesome there, either.)

But for segregation, it wasn't an abstract ideal that was being peddled to people who were looking for a new solution to problems.

We knew exactly what American segregation looked like on the ground--there wasn't any way the naive could delude themselves into thinking "separate but equal seems like an awesome solution. We'll make it work here like it's supposed to in theory, and everyone will be separately quite happy and living in harmony!" The reality of segregation on the ground in America was undeniably a nightmare, with Americans subject lynchings, grinding poverty, a relentless string of public humiliations large and small. All the horrific things people warned could happen if Communism took hold in America--losing your property, your freedom, your right to speak out, being killed--these were being lived every day by Americans under segregation.

My argument is that there was no naive idealist's excuse to take refuge in when it came to segregation. This would be like...I dunno, radical leftists arguing that we should support Russia's right to put down the uprising in Hungary, and that it was good. I'm sure there were some radical nutjobs who said that, but I am equally sure none of them were Senators who are hailed as great Americans by their party.

And that's my point--there is no Democratic equivalent of Jesse Helms. Not by a long shot.

(and the other difference is that roads have a TON of positive benefit--ambulances and trucks full of food drive on them! Unlike smoking, which just kills people)

Fuck the shit. The truth, always. Dying doesn't earn you a pass.

"""I am proud that my party has moved beyond that chapter in our history"""

That's funny, because the whole world just witnessed the most racist anti-black primary and it all happened inside the Democrat party.

How soon we forget that it was just the Democrats arguing how Bill and Hillary have been race baiting for the last 5 months and how small town white Democrats are still a bunch of racists, just like they were in the 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s.

You really need to check your history.

-- It was Bill Clinton that attacked Sister Soulja.

-- It was Bill Clinton that fly home to execute Ricky Rector to show how tough he was on blacks.

-- It was Clinton the NAACP sued in 1989 under the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965. "Plaintiffs offered plenty of proof of monolithic voting along racial lines, intimidation of black voters and candidates and other official acts that made voting harder for blacks," the Arkansas Gazette reported December 6, 1989. It added: "the evidence at the trial was indeed overwhelming that the Voting Rights Act had been violated."

A three-judge federal panel ordered Clinton to end the bigotry in his state.

-- Its was Clinton during his 12-year tenure as Governor never approved a state civil-rights law. However, he did issue birthday proclamations honoring Confederate leaders Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.

-- Clinton signed Act 116 in 1987. That statute reconfirmed that the star directly above the word "Arkansas" in the state flag "is to commemorate the Confederate States of America."

-- Clintons' Arkansas also observed Confederate Flag Day every year Clinton served. The governor's silence was consent.

-- Arkansas' former governor, the late Orval Eugene Faubus, attended Bill Clinton's 1979 gubernatorial inauguration, where the two pols hugged, as Arkansas Democrat-Gazette editorial page editor Paul Greenberg recalls. Faubus, of course, resisted the integration of Little Rock's Central High School in 1957. He actually deployed National Guard soldiers to bar nine black students from entering. Republican President Dwight Eisenhower dispatched soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division to break that logjam and give the black teens a fighting chance to learn. Clinton once lauded that same Faubus as a "man of significant ability."

-- Clinton praised Arkansas' late Democratic senator J. William Fulbright, a notorious segregationist who opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. He also signed the Southern Manifesto, which denounced the U.S. Supreme Court's landmark Brown vs. Board of Education school desegregation decision in 1954. Clinton called Fulbright "My mentor, a visionary, a humanitarian."

Yeah, ancient history for those Democrats who still think Clinton is a rock star. Clearly Clintons career is marked by far more racist acts then Helms or any other Republican for that matter.

Democrats simply ignore it.

This is no different then abortion. The Democrats favored abortion as a means to reduced the black and other minority populations.

The founder of Planned Parenthood said:

"We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population," she said, "if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members." Margaret Sanger

Now today, the Democrats would say they no longer feel that way; except when someone called Planned parenthood and wanted to donate money specifically to kill black babies and PP was very happy to accept the money and make sure it went to killing a black child.

Also PP centers are predominatatly in minority areas of course...

Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s niece, Alveda King, has stepped out to label Planned Parenthood a racist organization and accusing them of participating in the genocide of black babies.

But they are still embraced by the left with a wink and a nod for their 'good works'.

Another good example is the Confederate flag issue.

The media make believe that it is all about Republicans; but the simple fact is every state that had a confederate flag displayed with the state flag, it was put there on the orders of a DEMOCRATIC Governor.

Even Howard Dean recognized that the Democrats still had racists in their party when in 2003 he said:

"I still want to be the candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup trucks. ..We can't beat George Bush unless we appeal to a broad cross-section of Democrats."

This thread is attracting a lot of trolls trying to distract from the simple reality: Helms was a bad man who believed and did horrible things, and conservatives are lauding him has a hero of their movement. Those two things are closely related.

Let's not forget that Helms was a homophobic prick as well.

Apparently mathew is an idiot for trying to quote broder---another Hack who doesn't appear to care if their facts are right sonce their having fun smearing someone. Broder would never expect his colleagues to actually fact check him:

Matt:
Your link to the Broder article is an outrageous lie and you should explain to your readers why you have failed to correct it. Broders article states that in the 1950s Helms was a aide on Willis Smiths campaign and identifies them both as Republicans.

THE FACT IS BOTH WILLIS AND HELMS WERE DEMOCRATS.
THE CAMPAIGN HE REFERS TO WAS A PRIMARY, ONE DEMOCRAT AGAINST ANOTHER DEMOCRAT.

Broders claim is even shakier since he couldn't even get the Party right and his reference to something that happened in the early fifties is a source from the 1980s.

Helms didn't even become a Republican until the 1970s.

There was a book written about the primary, you can see it on Google. Helms is never mentioned, the Willis campaign denied all the racists campaign literature had come from their campaign and in fact the book points to a nemesis of Frank Port Grahams' named David Clark, as the most likely source of the race baiting.

Broder is a sad hack who probably Googled his so-called facts to smear Helms with a clearly made up charge by someone who didn't even realize Helms and Smith were life-long Democrats and Helms left the Party over the Vietnam War, not the Democrats lack of racist ways...

Broders article is full of such nonsense research often used by the left because he simply are incapable of refuting their opponents with facts persuasive arguments.

Maybe Patton can explain why he's a Republican, hostile to blacks, gays, feminists, etc., and why his party is a tribalized expression of his feelings.

People change, parties change. But hatred pretty much is eternal. If the Republican Party is the current vehicle for that sad failure, it hardly matters what Democrats were a long, long time ago.

Some of my conservative friends often complain about the difficulty of constructing a "usable history" out of the movement's recent past, and I sympathize with their plight.

We Democrats have a "usable history" that we aren't actually using, so maybe we can lend it to the GOP? They actually have been known to use it, when it's to their advantage to do so.

*

BTW -- how you handle the death of someone like Helms? Read Shakespeare's Mark Antony's "I've not come to praise Caesar but to bury him" speech and do the converse.

The trolls are using the classic GOP strategy so wonderfully parodied by the Simpsons in the episode where Side Show Bob runs for mayor: "Mayor Quimby even released the notorious murderer Side Show Bob [...] vote Side Show Bob for mayor" --

The Democrats as a party once housed the racists of the Solid South before the Democrats adopted Civil Rights as their cause and even to this day some Democrats (who are on the party's more GOP friendly wing) have used racially tinged campaign rhetoric -- therefore, you should vote for the GOP of Ronald "Philadelphi, MS and Bittburg" Reagan and of all those not-so-ex segregationists who used to be Democrats

As they say on the internets -- the stupid it burns.

Unfortunately, the American people fall for this "reasoning" every time (they fell for it in 2004 -- "JF Kerry voted for the war in Iraq, which ain't going so well ... vote GW Bush, who pushed the war from the get-go instead of flip-flopping on it") and the Democrats seem as unprepared for this attack (even if we watch the Simpsons) as BushCO was for 9/11 (flying planes into buildings? to quote South Park "Simpsons did it").

Will the Dems. be able to actually have a rapid response in place to the standard GOP "Side Show Bob for mayor" campaign strategy or will again "we never could have anticipated the GOP would run such a campaign".

No wonder people think the Dems. are effete -- they can't even fend off predictable political attacks from the GOP. Maybe in falling for this "reasoning" the American people aren't so dumb after all?

Patton probably thinks Broder is a liberal. Broder probably thinks so too.

Which is part of our problem as liberals ... conservatives may need to rid themselves of the legacy of Helms, et al., but we liberals need to figure out how to prevent wankers like Broder from representing us in the popular imagination.

Walt: ""Maybe Patton can explain why he's a Republican, hostile to blacks, gays, feminists, etc., """

Walt, After what we just witnessed in the Democrats primary where it was the misogynists against the racists; you really have no room to talk.

The Republican Party record is miles ahead of the Democrats, even though you have the national media on your side to lie for you.

I don't need to defend the Helms of the 1950s, but I also don't think Liberals should be reporting that he was a Republican aide to a Republican candidate when he clearly was not.

perhaps you need to actually learn something about the history of your Party...including your most recent President...the known racist..Bill Clinton

Patton, even the borderline-offensive tactics of Hillary don't change the fundamental reality of American political parties. Yours is a lily-white party for a reason, and that reason is explicated by, as much as anything, the praise heaped on a despicable bigot. There's an order of magnitude difference between Hillary and Helms, in case you haven't noticed.

You won't notice, of course. Reality is simply bent and twisted to fit the talking point du jour. And I encourage you to play your part here. Keep reminding us that Helms is a "conservative icon". Yep, a bitter, nearly sociopathic bigot is an icon for your side. I'm sure you'll solidify your hold on the South. And as you increasingly marginalize your party as a regional movement, keep whistling Dixie.

"if more of them would step forward and say that Helms marred the history of their movement and left decent people ashamed to call themselves conservative"

I'm still waiting for a lot of the folks we'd refer to as "Rockefeller Rs" or "Eisenhower Rs" to step forward. At some point one may have to stop believing they exist.

Oh, and for the people (person?) who is Anonymous in this thread: Better trolling, please.

Ugh. Of course my 12:00pm was written at the same time as one Anonymous's 11:59pm.

Those who have read this far (I'm sure that's a low #) can figure out which "Anonymous" postings I consider trolling.

Yours is a lily-white party for a reason, and that reason is explicated by, as much as anything, the praise heaped on a despicable bigot. - Anonymous

To be fair, it ain't just the racism. While many African-Americans are socially conservative (in terms of religiously-based attitudes on homosexuality and other "hot button" issues) the "cultural conservative" appeals of the GOP (even in anti-gay rhetoric) are not only eerily similar in their rhetoric to the racist rhetoric of the past, but also the anti-intellectual arguments of cultural conservatism just plain fail to resonate with many African-Americans whose social conservatism comes from a religious environment which prizes intellectual achievement (go to your nearest African-American church and note the highest degree obtained by the pastor -- typically a research-based doctorate degree -- and compare that with the highest degree obtained by the pastor of the nearest socially conservative white church).

Of course, in between these two reasons is the idea of "white privilege" encapsulated in cultural conservatism. Even if the arguments of the cultural conservatives are not even implicitly bigoted, they still hold "real 'murkin culture" to = "white working class culture".

If we had let the south secede, America would be a fully civilized country now, but we would have suffered from having a unstable 3rd-world pariah state on our southern border. You can argue whether it was worth rescuing the South's various victims. If they wanted to secede again (hint, hint) we should definitely cut them loose. They'd sink like a rock.

It would be nice if you could actually argue intelligently as to what policies Helms supported as a Republican that made him such a racist and how Clintons racist past, clearly outlined above makes him less of a racist then Helms.
Clinton by far has instituted and supported far more racit policies.

The only thing you've been able to point to is Helms didn't support race based affirmative action, but neither did Clinton, who wanted to 'mend it not end it'. Helms position is the only proper NON-RACIST position and that is to judge applicants on the content of their rusume', not the color of their skin.

You have to butcher the English language and deny reality to claim that race based affirmative action is not racist, it is near perfect racism. Promote one group ahead of another based on their racist...what could be more racist??

Now you may support racism, you may say its only fair that we act racist now, because the Democrats were racist for centuries and helped their white buddies, but don't pretend that your not using racism to deal with past racism.

If race based affirmative action doesn't promote based on race, then why does it need to exist to begin with??

I don't know what's funnier, the idea that since a race-baiter lost the Democratic primary the Democrats are therefore racists (overlooking the fact that the majority of African-Americans, Latinos, Native Americans and Asians vote Democratic) or the idea that history ended in 1964 and thus that the fact the racist Democrats of that era (except for Byrd) went over to the GOP and were its Congressional leaders.

I am amazed so many Democrats claim their party has moved beyond race as if the last year didn't exist and Hillary wasn't racking up huge wins against a black candidate the media had long ago crowned the winner.

Do the Democrats here consider Al Sharpton to be part of their party? is Al not a juge racist? is he not embraced by Hillary Clinton?

Do I really need to repeat all of Al Sharptons bigotted and racists tirades...which are far, far worse then anything Helms ever said,

Fron 'Jew bastards', to 'white interlopers', to 'bloodsucking Jews' to
"If the Jews want to get it on,” he said, “tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house.”
Yet Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton see fit to stand on stage with the racist and ask him for his support. The entire Democrat party ignores this racism while spending their time lying about the GOP.

Helms supported segregation and was against allowing for interracial marriage. He supported labeling Mandela a terrorist and was against putting sanctions on South Africa to end apartheid. He used to sing racist songs to black Senators just to be an ass. Of course he was a racist.

Patton, as a political activist, Helms was a strong opponent of the Civil Rights Act (unlike Ted Kennedy, a Democrat who supported it vehemently on the Senate floor), and Helms never apologized or repented for that. He vociferously opposed a holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr., a man he believed was an enemy of America in many of his public statements he had made before becoming a senator.

He was also viciously anti-gay and openly sought to prevent the appointment to gays to any government positions and openly derided them in public, using language that, if it were directed towards a member of your or my families, would result in severe, severe consequences towards anyone saying such things.

He also openly derided and degraded education and the value of education, calling UNC the "University of Negros and Communists." In short-- represented much of what is wrong with many people, and he is representative of the sort of culture than many Americans try to ensure their children to not get corrupted by.

Helms was a bad man. A twisted man. An immoral man. Glorifying him will only result in future generations mistakenly believing that living the evil life he lived is an acceptable thing.

There is something pathetic in the thrashings of so-called conservatives trying for the upteenth time to split Democrats along racial lines. Particularly, as in the examples above, when they are aiming their appeals at African Americans.

Of course, if one accepted their arguments, you'd have to conclude that African Americans were, in the main, political imbeciles for voting repeatedly for the "racist" Democratic Party for the past fourty years.

What underlines the pathetic character of those who make such arguments is that they either don't recognize the insult the are casting on African Americans or, in their arrogance, they think that African Americans are too stupid to see it for themselves.

White supremacist ideology. It doesn't fade away, it just gets dumber.

I like the idea that there is just one unified "pro-racism" ideology, inclusive of both blacks who hate whites and whites who hate blacks. Together, at last.

What spectacular idiocy. But, seriously, where does the meme come from -- I mean they are practically crawling out of the woodwork to spout this idiotic argument.

Ezra the Junior High School blogger has not spent 5 minutes in his life thinking about Jesse Helms - or even just absorbing the basic facts about his life and career - but that doesn't stop him from catching the wave of lefty misinformation and hate, and producing a worthless post about him.

"Ezra the Junior High School blogger has not spent 5 minutes in his life thinking about Jesse Helms - or even just absorbing the basic facts about his life and career - but that doesn't stop him from catching the wave of lefty misinformation and hate, and producing a worthless post about him."

This is not an argument. This has been another installment of "argument, not an argument"

Jesse Helms, who is totally not a racist, used to be a DEMOCRAT! HA! That shows how racist the Democrats are!

There's something almost awe-inspiring about the ability of Republicans to discipline their brains this way. At a certain level, they must experience a "wait a second, that doesn't make sense" sensation, but they fight through it, make themselves believe it, and then say it in a public forum without any apparent shame.

Sweetie writes Look at the Democrats who filbustered the civil rights act and voting rights act.

They later became Republicans.

As Curly would say --

Pore Jesse’s daid,
Pore old Jesse Helms is daid,
All gather ’round his coffin now and cry
And cry!

He had a heart of brass
And a G-O-P pol’s ass
And that’s why such a feller had to die.

Pore Jesse’s daid
Pore old Jesse Helms is daid,
He’s lookin’ oh so peaceful and serene
And serene!

He’s all laid out to rest
With his hands acrost his chest
His robe and hood have never been so clean!

Pore Jesse’s daid
Pore old Jesse Helms is daid
His racist friends’ll weep for miles around
Miles around!

The daisies in the dell
Will give out a different smell
When Jesse Helms is underneath the ground.

Pore Jesse’s daid
A candle lights his haid
He’s layin’ in a coffin made of wood
Made of wood!

And some folks are feelin’ glad
Cause he used to treat ‘em bad
But now they know old Jesse’s gone for good.

Pore Jesse’s daid
A candle lights his haid!
He’s lookin’ oh so purty and so nice.
Oh so nice!

He looks like he’s asleep,
But we’re glad that he won’t keep
Cause it’s summer and they’re running out of ice.

Pore Jesse’s daid . . .

With apologies to Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein

Holy shit, the babbling idiots really are out in force, aren't they? Even so far as to (pathetically) try and equate President Clinton (designated by the African American community as an "honorary black man") with the inveterately soulless Jesse Helms? The sharper trolls must've moved on to...lobbying, or something.

SteveJ:
""Sweetie writes Look at the Democrats who filbustered the civil rights act and voting rights act.

They later became Republicans.""""

COMPLETELY FALSE.

The chief opponents of the Civil Rights Bill were Democrat Senators Sam Ervin, Albert Gore Sr., and Robert Byrd. All have remained Democrats in good standing and Byrd is often called 'the conscience of the Senate by his fellow Democrats'

A little more history:
Abraham Lincoln emancipated the slaves

1866: first civil rights act passed by Republicans over a Presidential veto, blacks granted citizenship, segregation was forbidden

1868 Republicans passed the 14th amendment passed granting equal protection

1871 Republicans passed voting rights

Theodore Roosevelt was the first President to invite an African-American to dinner in the White House.

1920s, the Democratic platforms was silent on anti-lynching legislation as the Republican platforms did.

1957 civil rights act pushed by Ike, passed . Sen Kennedy voted against it, A Democrat Senator filibustered it for 24 hrs, Senator Johnson watered it down so that it lacked enforcement

Eisenhower sent Federal troops to Little Rock to integrate Central High

1960 another civil rights act, again Dems kept enforcement measures out of it

1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Over eighty percent of Republicans voted for both.

Nixon created the EEOC and expanded civil rights law.

Ronald Reagan signed the bill making MLK day a public holiday

Today the three highest ranking black government officials ever to serve were appointed by Republicans (Powell, Rice and Thomas)

Liberals simply have to deny their own paries history.

Thurmond was the only switch to the Republicans and that happened in 1964.

Here's the rest, all remained Democrats for the rest of their careers.

Robert Byrd, current senator from West Virginia
- J. William Fulbright, Arkansas senator and political mentor of Bill Clinton
- Albert Gore Sr., Tennessee senator, father and political mentor of Al Gore. Gore Jr. has been known to lie about his father's opposition to the Civil Rights Act.
- Sam Ervin, North Carolina senator
- Richard Russell, and later Democrat President Pro Tempore

The complete list of the 21 Democrats who opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 includes Senators:

- Hill and Sparkman - Fulbright and McClellan
- Holland and Smathers
- Russell and Talmadge
- Ellender and Long
- Eastland and Stennis
- Ervin and Jordan of
- Johnston and Thurmond of South Carolina
- Gore Sr. and Walters of Tennessee
- H. Byrd and Robertson of Virginia
- R. Byrd of West Virginia

Ohh, and don't forget the Democrats that opposed school desegregation:

anti-School integration were all Democrats:
- Orval Faubus, Democrat Governor of Arkansas and one of Bill Clinton's political heroes
- George Wallace, Democrat Governor of Alabama
- Lester Maddox, Democrat Governor of Georgia

Then there's also ernest Hollings who was fully supported as aDEmocrat even though he opposed lunch counter integration and put the Confederate flag up in South Carolina.

Of course when the Democrats couldn't defeat integration at the ballot box, they ran to court:
Exclusion of minorities was the general rule of the Democrat Party of many states for decades, especially in Texas. This racist policy reached its peak under the New Deal in the southern and western states, often known as the New Deal Coalition region of FDR. The Supreme Court in Nixon v. Herndon declared the practice of "white primaries" unconstitutional in 1927 after states had passed laws barring Blacks from participating in Democrat primaries. But the Democrat Parties did not yield to the Court’s order. After Nixon v. Herndon, Democrats simply made rules within the party's individual executive committees to bar minorities from participating, which were struck down in Nixon v. Condon in 1932. The Democrats, in typical racist fashion, responded by using state parties to pass rules barring blacks from participation. This decision was upheld in Grovey v. Townsend, which was not overturned until 1944 by Smith v. Allwright. The Texas Democrats responded with their usual ploys and turned to what was known as the "Jaybird system" which used private Democrat clubs to hold white-only votes on a slate of candidates, which were then transferred to the Democrat party itself and put on their primary ballot as the only choices. Terry v. Adams overturned the Jaybird system, prompting the Democrats to institute blocks of unit rule voting procedures as well as the infamous literacy tests and other Jim Crow regulations to specifically block minorities from participating in their primaries. In the end, it took 4 direct Supreme Court orders to end the Democrat's "white primary" system, and after that it took countless additional orders, several acts of Congress, and a constitutional amendment to tear down the Jim Crow codes that preserved the Democrat's white primary for decades beyond the final Supreme Court order ruling it officially unconstitutional.

Hispanics in South Texas were treated especially poorly by the Democrat Party, which relied heavily on a system of political bosses to coerce and intimidate Hispanics into voting for Democrat primary candidates of choice. Though coercion is illegal, this system, known as the Patron system, is still in use to this day by local Democrat parties in some heavy Hispanic communities of the southwest.

You know I try to find nice about people who I politically disagree with; I appreciate Barry Goldwater's idealism and support of civil liberties even when it upset the religious right; I appreciate that Reagan saw an opportunity for and end to Cold War with the rise of Gorbachev and took it; or that George Wallace was eager to sit down and give advice to Jesse Jackson.

But Jesse Helms was a genuinly foul person -- there wasn't a deranged right-wing terrorist or dictator, an appeal to white supremacy, or a tobacco subsidy he didn't like.

Even Strom Thurmond found it in his heart to start voting for civil rights bills, this a***** was still going on about how MLK was a communist into the '90s.

1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act. Over eighty percent of Republicans voted for both.

The Republican nominee for president in 1964 opposed the act. That nominee was himself, supported both for his presidency and his opposition to the act by a political activist named Ronald Reagan. To date, the Republican party has never condemned the moral failures of their heroes on this mark. Instead, the Republican party embraced them and lionized them.

Meanwhile, Democratic party heroes like Ted Kennedy were the people on he senate floor passionately advocating in support of those acts.

But, hey, as I've said before, the racists and opponents of civil rights are deserving of political representation, too. When LBJ sold that crowd down the river, it was only natural to expect politicians like Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan to pick them up.

I am old enough to remember Jesse Helms when he wasn't much more than another shithead commentator on WRAL. He was pretty much like the right wingnut salesmen you hear today, only more hillbilly and paranoid.
That was all the qualification he ever needed to be a star Republican senator and a "conservative icon".

I believe it was the early 1990s when he ran the race baiting ad - or was it Strum Thurman? in which he showed a black man's hand shaking someone else's hand. And the Narrator said- guess who's getting your job now. I can forgive 40 years ago, but this guy was a piss of crap. I don't wish death on anyone, and for his family , I am sorry, but he really wasn't anything but an asshole . It's really that simple.

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