RIP Sen. Robert Byrd

We defend or just ignore the fact that one-third of the Founding Fathers were slave owners.

"They were a product of the time they lived in" is either an acceptable excuse 100 percent of the time or it isn't. Just take your pick---and be consistent about it.

 

How did the guy die? I know he was 92 but you'd think there would have been some sort of death watch (a la Cheney) if anyone thought it was imminent.

 

I mostly agree with this, though I don't think history defends or ignores the ownership of slaves by many of the Founding Fathers.

But I don't think many here applied that standard to Thurmond or Helms.

I also think that if we're going to judge people's conversions on these matters, we should base our judgments on their actions, not just their words.

It's easy to say you reject your past views. How did you live?

I don't know enough about how Byrd lived his life to judge him, but I do know that Thurman & Helms -- by their actions -- appeared to live by their newly expressed beliefs.

Also, 21 is right. Maybe Robert Byrd is a saint, but that doesn't mean we should ignore Byrd's KKK past. It's part of telling the whole story of Senator Byrd, and for Evil to get upset every time someone "trots it out", is silly .

How would you tell his story? Where would you include his founding of a KKK chapter? Would you leave it out?

 

Someone took it down. It said, "Oh that was 60 years ago..." as an excuse to his Klan membership.

Never an excuse to join the Klan.

 

When you are 92, death is always imminent...

 

The heat got him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/29/us/politics/29byrd.html?src=mv

 

Byrd was pandering to his base at the time.

Anti-Black, anti-Catholic.

Profiling, to serve one's self, and one's constiuency.

Dispicable, then. Dispicable, now.

 

No.
Byrd's beliefs were his own. He wasn't pandering. His beliefs might have echoed voter sentiment, but it was not pandering.

 

Lotta real deep thinkers out today.
By the way, Strom's last name was "Thurmond," not "Thurman."

 

I assume you mean Jesse Helms, the same guy who ran a blatantly racist ad in 1990? What the hell actions did he practice to prove any "newly expressed beliefs"?

 

I wasn't willing to give Strom Thurmond or Jerry Falwell the benefit of the doubt. I'm not willing to give Robert Byrd the benefit of the doubt.

I'd have been willing to accept "youthful indiscretions" as an excuse if he were a KKK member at, say, 13. But when you're in your 20s, you should have a bloody good idea of right from wrong.

I'm not drinking the Byrd Kool Aid. Period.

 

And it's not a "youthful indiscretion" when you are the FOUNDER of a fucking KKK chapter.