Wonderful tribute to a rare man.  Sen Helms was a hero of mine when I was a teenager growing up in the Reagan era, and he never wavered in his adherence to his principles.

I was posted at Ft. Bragg in 1970-71, where the high point of the day was Jesse Helms’ TV editorial.  When I found out later, after I’d left the Army, that he’d been elected to the Senate, I was absolutely delighted.

One thing the Left can’t stand is the idea that their political opponents are often decent, humane people.  Helms was one such man.  There are such figures among our opponents.  Conservatives should remember that having the right opinions is not the same as being decent, kind, loyal, steadfast, and the like.  I’ve met more than my share of repulsive conservative activists and well-meaning liberals.  To recognize this is a great counter-cultural act in our times.

The “White Nationalists” have become the flip-side of Sid Cundiff.

Leave it alone, already.  Jesse Helms was as much a “White Nationalist” as Strom Thurmond...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essie_Mae_Washington-Williams

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essie_Mae_Washington-Williams

Ron Paul Political Report

Volume I Number 1

Page 3

In Congress today, unquestioning support for Israel is true bipartisan foreign policy. Conservative Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) was once a critic of aid to Israel. In 1983, the Israel lobby set out to forge an alliance between the evangelical right and Jews and knew Helms would be the best place to start. As a result, in 1984 Israeli PACs and associated wealthy businessmen helped bankroll Helms’ reelection. campaign. Once Helms was back in office, he was flown to Israel. At the Wailing wall, Helms described the revelation that God wanted foreign aid to Israel. This also, not coincidentally, made him acceptable as minority leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
__________________________________

Did Lew Rockwell and/or Murray Rothbard write this one?

A great article.  A friend of mine who was a page in the Senate told me years ago that Helms was the nicest man in the Senate.  And Christopher Roach’s point is well taken:  how we treat others is far more important than what we tell others we believe.

No wonder Ron Paul had so many inexplicable opponents.  Why should Tim Russet behave so poorly toward him?  Israel is the real third rail of American politics.

Or this: “when Martin Luther King and the nonviolent protesters of the 60s were trying to secure basic rights, Helms, in between denegrating King’s followers as communists and “moral degenerates,” was busy asserting that “The Negro cannot count forever on the kind of restraint that’s thus far left him free to clog the streets, disrupt traffic, and interfere with other men’s rights."” When Carol Moseley Braun was elected to the Senate, Helms would sing Dixie in the elevator whenever saw her, with the intent, as he told Orrin Hatch, of making Mosley-Braun cry.” [SOURCE]

Helms was a close personal friend. In 1986 he backed me enthusiastically for the directorship of
the NEH, even though, as he joked, I had once placed articles in Gene Genovese’s Marxist
Perspectives. Jesse also gave my eldest daughter, who was then only seventeen, the chance to work
on his Senate staff. Next to Robert Taft, he was my favorite US senator of the twentieth century. He
also produced the marvelous retort to the suggestion that a zoo be built with federal funds in
Chapel Hill: “It’s totally unncessary. The whole place is already a zoo.”

Great article!

Nice tribute to a valiant and honest political leader. I first met Senator Helms in 1965 (he helped
sponsor me as an exchange student). My mother and aunt graduated with his wife, Miss Dot, in Raleigh.
Through the years and several political campaigns we maintained contact and a rich correspondence.
Suffering from some mild dementia, he spent the last couple of years at Mayview Convalescent Center
in Raleigh, a stone’s throw from Whitaker Glen Retirement Center, where his wife has an apartment.
Despite failing health, he was always delighted to receive visitors, especially if they came bearing
“Snoopy’s” hotdogs, which he loved. By calculation his office and he, personally, responded to well
over half a million requests from constituents for assistance, whether to clear up a problem with the
VA, to secure Social Security, or break some other bureaucratic logjam. He was recognized at having
the best constituent services office of any senator. And, what’s more, during much of his tenure, he
would respond personally to as many as one third of the letters he got, often with handwritten notes
added to typed responses. And it never made any difference which party the person belonged to....

We Tar Heels loved the fact that when Jesse said or promised something, you could count on it, take it to
the bank, so to speak. We might not always agree with everything he said, but we loved him just the
same. We knew he was incorruptible, and that 95 out of 100 times, he was right (we could forgive the
other 5 times). He started out as an informed critic of our Middle East/Israeli policies, but via
Chick Hecht, he more or less was “converted” to a strong pro-Israel viewpoint. I disagreed with him
on that, but at least he was up front and open about it. And on the MLK hoopla, well, I think
subsequent history has proven his courageous opposition to the holiday and the mania surrounding it,
to be right (it was, after all, the late Sam Francis who prepared him for that famous “debate.")

In 1976, with the Jesse Helms Congressional Club (here in NC) and such great political strategists
as Carter Wrenn and Tom Ellis, Helms practically saved Ronald Reagan (in the N.C. GOP presidential
primary), and Reagan always acknowledged that his unexpected victory in North Carolina was the reason
he survived and later became the GOP leader after Ford’s defeat at the hands of Jimmy Carter. It was
Jesse who demanded (and got, at least partially) a reform of the United Nations. It was Jesse who,
as Foreign Relations Committee chairman, worked to help finally dismantle the Soviet empire. He won the
admiration of Lady Thatcher, the Dalai Lama, and Vaclav Havel, to mention but a few world leaders.

From the beginning Jesse worked tirelessly to undo the Roe v. Wade decision, and indeed he received
votes from many not-so-conservative citizens because of that commitment.

Although eschewing press conferences and the glitzy Sunday morning news programs, he was always
approachable for the everyday, hard-working North Carolina citizen.

Most of all, he was a genuine Southern gentleman, who liked people, who did what he said, and believed
firmly in God, family, and the constitutional American Republic (as well as being proud of his
Confederate heritage!).

They don’t make’em like him anymore. Jesse helped pioneer the modern age of televised ads and distance
campaigning, but while he was always himself, most others want to present a packaged persona via
TV and the Net. Jesse was, well, always Jesse.  We loved him for it, and we admired him for really
understanding what the word “represent” actually meant.

Requiescat in pace.

There is no way I can top the deservedly nice compliments paid to this legendary conservative, so I won’t.  What I will note is how far the conservative movement has floundered.  I listen to quite a bit of allegedly conservative talk radio, and have yet to hear mention made of his death.  It speaks volumes that such a great conservative doesn’t seem to warrant mention by what passes for conservatism today.

I do hope that his soul rests in peace.  But I’ll beseech God’s blessings for us, since there isn’t another like him, and we need somebody like him desperately.  God help us.

Goodbye provincial redneck.

@Matt Ritenhouse:
Excuse me, but Senator Helms was not a “provincial redneck.” Certainly he had deep roots in the
soil of rural, small town North Carolina, but he was also an eloquent orator, a stickler for good
grammar, and a reader (and quoter) of great literature. Just because a man speaks in one of the many
accents of the South doesn’t make him any less brilliant or smart than, say, a graduate of Harvard yard,
thank you.  Morever, I should rather be governed by an upright gentleman such as Jesse Helms than by
any ten or hundred such graduates....after all, isn’t Barack Obama a Harvard product?

“Goodbye provincial redneck.”

Redneck?  That’s a slur for Scots-Irish people.  I bet a good liberal such as yourself wouldn’t dream of making such a slur about any other group.  Why the hatred and double standard?

This is simply one more piece of evidence to support my contention that liberals are the most hateful group of people around.  Since liberals are those who take it upon themselves to feign moral superiority over our alleged hatreds, the hypocrisy is simply breathaking.  I’ll never understand why so many white Americans put up with this type of hater.

Ah yes,the projections and generalizations begin.  Who said I’m a liberal?  Helms was appalling.  I’m not surprised that he would win such accolades from Taki readers.

“Who said I’m a liberal?  Helms was appalling.”

So you’re not a liberal, huh?  Then please do explain why Helms was “appalling”.

Besides, the ethnic slur was a cheap shot.  You wouldn’t dare make such a slur about blacks.  Or am I wrong about that too?

You’re not a liberal?  I’m calling your bluff.

Mr. Ritenhouse,

Can you be a bit more specific?  There was a time I would probably have agreed with you based on the background noise in the media.  After all, all southern conservatives are evil.  Everybody knows that.  Now that I’ve stopped voting (except for one final write-in) and become politically aware I’ve learned to shut out the noise and I can’t remember ever hearing anything about Sen. Helms other than he was a southern conservative and therefore evil.  Would you care to add a bit of substance to your assertion?  Or should I just continue to follow the priciple that has served me well the past few years: everything about politics you hear on television, radio and the print media is a lie until proven otherwise?

Jesse Helms - a North Carolina Whig.

Why would a hardcore Whig deserve the accolades of supposed “conservatives”?

@Matt Ritenhouse:
“Helms was appal1ing"---okay, he was a friend for 43 years and my
senator for thirty. Give me (us) chapter and verse. Civil rights, I
shall be happy to actually cite what he said in his arguments against
the so-called “civil rights” bills of the 1960s. MLK: again, I shall
be happy to cite the famous speech (later reprinted) that he gave on
the floor of the US Senate. The arts controversy: ditto.

The only thing “appalling” is your rather stiff-necked condescension
towards Southerners (by the way, my neck gets red in the summer, but
it didn’t stop me from earning a Ph.D. in Spain or teaching in Argentina,
or other things that we “rednecks,” you know, just aren’t capable of
doing....).  Like many “provincials"---men like Richard Weaver, Donald
Davidson, Allen Tate, Walker Percy, and William Faulkner---I’m rather
proud of my “provincialism.” I think the good ole’ USA could use a
great deal more of it, and a great deal more Jesse Helms....

Mr. Hall,
Last time I checked, AIPAC and other donations from Jews have consistently gone of Helms’s opponents. But thank you for proving what kind of an idiot Paulites are.

It couldn’t possibly be that Helms visited Israel, realized that Israelis are not like America liberal “Jews”, and chose to view the country as a nation not an extension of liberals in America or an anti-colonial project.

No debate here, RonL, I just wanted to point out that Mr Helms was a more complicated character than what people try to present.

Also, I was interested to see what kind of comments the Ron Paul Political Report would bring.  It should be obvious to everyone that Jesse Helms and Ron Paul come from entirely different sides of the GOP.  But I guarantee you the same people that would praise the Whig Jesse Helms would also praise the Liberal Ron Paul.  It is intellectual dissonance.

sure RonL, he had a revelation at the Wailing Wall that the Jews in Israel were a nation he should support. Provided of course that the Jews in America gave him campaign funds. Its not like AIPAC doesn’t cover their bases. Look at the Minnesota race this year.

Also, the author of that Ron Paul Political Report was likely Murray Rothbard. Rothbard felt no loyalty to any country but America, his nation of birth.

Israel is nation with its own unique circumstances. How exactly does that justify $3 billion a year in American aid?

“Robert Taft” (and I presume this is reference to the Senator and not his corrupt grandson),

Neither Israel, nor any other foreign nation should receive a penny of foreign aid. Restitution for damage caused by the US from specific acts may be in order. (For instance, I believe we paid the Japanese some money after a sub surfaced on a fishing trawler)

Given Rothbard’s soft-on communism foreign policy, I question his loyalty to anything but a non-conservative ideology known as libertarianism.

Since AIPAC donates to almost anyone and most money would always have gone to Helm’s opponent, Helms gained nothing and knew it. Helm’s never got serious Jewish support. Stop insulting Helms’s integrity and our intelligence.

A great lion of the senate has been called home.

I had the honor of meeting Senator Helms on a couple of occasions and could come to no other conclusion that he was on on great American patriot.

The attacks and smears only demonstrates the smallness, insignificance, and moral repugnance of his critics.

Thank you Paul Weyrich for offering this wonderful accounting of the man and his accomplishments.

RonL, Rothbard’s primary concern was indeed a non-conservative, as you say, ideology of libertarianism. But his “soft-on communism” foreign policy says nothing about his loyalty to America.

This discussion would make more sense if people were to accept the fact that Jesse Helms wasn’t a conservative.

One of the last great American racists has finally graced us with his passing. A true paragon of everything small-minded, intellectually feeble and morally-backward, conservatives can now begin to re-write his history to something less offensive to most Americans. It’s impossible to say how many people left the Republicans behind because of this nutty old race-baiter. Thurmond, Helms, who’s next? As a Southerner, his passing helps us reclaim our regional reputation as from the last of his kind.
It’s nice that he was kind in person, but unfortunately his actions on the national stage were far more damaging to the American people than his personal kindness could ever make up for.
Let the re-writing begin!

Jon, do you live in a parallel universe where opposing racist affirmative action is racism rather than basic fairness?

@Jon:
Normally I tend to be respectful and civil with persons on Takimag, or for that
matter when I engage in any discourse, but, I make an exception in your case: you,
Sir, in your comments are beneath contempt. You have absolutely no idea whatsoever
about what you write. It is, Sir, ideas from such individuals as yourself that have
destroyed what was once conservatism and made it in large part the “p.c” handmaiden
of the Left. You claim at all to be a “conservative” (which self-evidently you are
NOT, but your utterings are clear illustration of just how we have reached the nadir we now
experience.

I knew Jesse Helms for 43 years, and your characterizations are right
out of the extreme Trotskyite-Frankfort School handbook.  I take strong and personal offense at
what you say. Shame on you for denigrating a great and good man. F