Actually no jerlaw...he can tell him to shut up. Your point is that you don't say shut up to reasonable people who disagree. The problem is that the original poster is not making a reasonable argument, and at the moment I'm not completely sure I'll call him a reasonable person. I live in NC, and am well educated (now of course, maybe you're going to tell me I'm lying...I'm sure to many no southerner can have any more than an 8th grade education or something....by law none the less!), so I think I can speak to this. However, I think that any person, no matter what their education can see the horrible flaws with the original post.

This is another in a long line of posts talking about how racist people here are. All southern politicians are racist? And have the same philisophical viewpoints as Helms? Really? I'm going to pull out my nice little list here of just a few politicians from just NC who I think you can call far from racist. Mind you, this is just a list I can think of off the top of my head, without going into deep thought. Gov/Sen Terry Sanford...probably the main reason why NC went to JFK in '60. Gov Jim Hunt, Sen John Edwards, present Gov Easley. Present Reps. Bobby Etherige, David Price. I also mention these specifically because these were/are (Sanford has passed on now) also democrats, and all are at least moderate to fairly liberal in their politics and views. Also look at the NC state government. Majority democrat, in both the statehouse and legislature right now. Of course, I'm sure many are going to say something like "ah, yes, of course you idiot...you're talking about dixiecrats. Wow, they are still around." No...they are in fact democrats. Dixiecrats do not exist anymore, except in the history books. They are republicans now. And the state republican party can a lot of the time hardly get it's act together as a coherant party.

So this is my main problem to the poster...you say that southern politicians are all racist. If this is indeed the case, I really do want you to go through that list and tell me...how were these people racist? Or believe(d) in Helms' philisophical views? If you really do believe this ridiculous charge, prove me wrong. Actually I will even do you one better. I'll even throw in our current Senators for your consideration, Dole and Burr. Both republicans (which, despite what you might think, is actually unusual, our ratio most of the time in the senate is 1 R, 1 D, but they were elected during the little era when repblicans were winning everything), and I am actually not big fans of theirs (which I know I know, in order to be a good liberal, I have to say they're racist, well, I guess I'm not a good liberal), but I really want to know, what makes them racist? To me, that's just a really loaded charge. Now if you want to say Helms was a racist, I really don't mind, and in some ways, I'll completely agree with you. But that's one person, and it's someone who's views, etc. are widely known and accessable. Therefore, if you want to call him racist, then that is your opinion based on knowledge of the person. But it's this thing about making such a generalized, and as I said, to me, a loaded statement about people that I doubt you know that is constantly setting me off. Just like many other posters who outright call North Carolinians and southerners in general racist.

As far as people voting for Helms because they were racist...most people I would definitely argue (and already have, I already wrote an earlier post explaining, from my experience/perspective/educati­on/research etc., why and how Helms got elected, "Why they voted for Helms...") did not vote for him because they were racist. It's just more complicated than that. If you're talking about racial issues, it has more to do with the ideas of affirmative action, quotas, etc., basically the civil rights act extensions. I would argue that if Helms really could have gotten rid of or campaigned for getting rid of all civil rights acts, etc. by the time that he did run and serve, I'm just not convinced we would be talking about him now...but of course now we're getting into "alternative history." And it's not like he just showed up and everybody voted for him either. He was just as contriversial here as he was anywhere else. Yesterday the flags were at half-staff because of the passing of Helms (before people go there...I'm pretty sure they put the flags at half-staff for any US senator when he dies, they definitely did it for Sanford too). I was half-way joking, (half-way seriously thinking though too) to be on the look-out for some random people trying to yank those flags up to full staff again... The Helms races probably still are amongst the most contentious races in U.S. history, probably the most contentious in modern American history no doubt.

I do want to close with going back to something, that I've seen in a number of posts now (not all, but still an annoying number)...which is how generally the charge of racism is being thrown around. Are there racists in NC? Sure. But several things I want to say about that. One, there's racists everywhere. Anybody who makes such a general "racist" charge based on some kind of regional superiority is many times a fool. A number of years ago, the KKK was having quite a resurgence. The problem was, it was not in NC, it was not in Alabama or anywhere else in the south. It was in Ohio. Had some problems up there that made it in the national news. And secondly, yes, let's look at history. I do know about the civil rights era, and I do know about Boston, and Chicago, and if anybody from California even wants to start, you've got to be absolutely crazy... And as much as some people probably wouldn't believe it, I don't know anybody in the KKK. I think I've met one guy long ago who maybe by this time is in the KKK (someone I knew in high school), but that's as far as it goes. And I would argue to the death that the vast majority of people in NC are not racist. Of course, I am younger, so maybe I'm biased. But even if you go by age, even if you reference the older generations, I would still say at least most are not racist. But what do I know? I just live here...