Former Sen. Jesse Helms Dies at 86

...that you cannot understand that in the absence of following the Constitution, ANYONE gets to make up the rules ANY TIME they want to. Here's an example: Look at the unimpressive results of "No Child Left Behind," read the Constitution, and then tell me where you find the word "education" mentioned even once. What in the world is the federal government doing involved in setting education satandards? We have fifty governors and state legislatures to do that, and in accordance with the Tenth Amendment...."The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." If we had one or two governors with enough backbone to tell George Bush where to put the DOE funding, NCLB probably would have died in the womb....as it should have. The federal government has absolutely no Constitutional authority to set education standards for the states. Senator Helms recognized that there IS a Tenth Amendment, and when the media says that he "opposed civil rights legislation," that's not accurate. It should read that he "opposed civil rights legislation that plainly overstepped federal authority as granted in the Constitution." He never once thought Blacks inferior or undeserving of the same liberties Whites enjoyed. He was smart enough to realize, however, that the best of intentions can go awry and fail miserably when the government oversteps the rules under which it must operate, tries to suddenly "create" instant fairness, or opts to replace one evil with abother evil. Thirty years ago, the federal government was pushing forced busing in urban school districts across this nation, and Senator Helms was fighting it every step of the way. How common is forced busing to achieve racial balance now? Extinct, because it was a total failure. Blacks and Whites uniformly rebelled against it. But it was oh-so-easy to order! Who cares if the legal authority was pretty shakey? Who cares if it actually set race relations BACK a few years? Senator Helms cared. He knew that it was a bad idea and overstepped federal authority. The rules were set down in the Brown v BOE Topeka decision....but nothing in that decision said that the federal government could force your child to go to a school on the other side of the city...yet that's exactly what we did. Some kids in Boston were getting on buses at 6 AM to be in school by 8 AM. They didn't get home until dinner time. Everyone suffered, Black and White. As far as your feelings about me, whoopdi-doo. I was nineteen years old when I learned that you'd better not be too fussy about the color of the other guy's skin, because you don't know who is going to be carrying your shot-up butt to the medevac bird. Skin color garners neither condemnation nor special consideration from me. I'm about the most color-blind person you'll meet in your life, so wonder all you want to about me. Just don't expect me to be warm, sensitive, and politically correct, because whether you're White or Black, I'm going to tell you like it is. If that offends you, toughen up, suck it up, and get over it. "Life's tough, but it's tougher when you're a naive bozo who thinks that life can be MADE fair."

Must be a lot of tobacco fartmers in this state to have elected Jesse 5 times.

...that farmers had a right to grow a PERFECTLY LEGAL CROP. What part of that confuses you? A large portion of this state still makes their living from tobacco. It's still a legal product. Live with it! Your contention that Senator Helms "created" racial divides is too ludicrous to even comment on. Go back to school and study American history from 1664 to 1972.