The Passing of a Patriot--Jesse Helms

On July 4th, a sacred holiday honoring the birth of our nation, we learned of the death of a great statesman, Sen. Jesse A. Helms, Jr. How fitting for such a patriot to pass away on the same day as two of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams.

Back in 1980-81 I had the privilege of working for and getting to see Sen. Helms in numerous private settings with many well-known political and business leaders. I can report that he was the same man whether in front of a network television camera or sitting quietly at a table having a cup of coffee and privately discussing a political matter. He was as comfortable dealing with a foreign dignitary as he was with a North Carolina tobacco farmer.

It is true that Jesse Helms was a strong-willed, opinionated, forceful, dogged and unrelenting man. But, he was always a gentleman, always kind, always humble and he always treated everyone with the utmost respect -no matter their station in life.

A quote from Helm's book, "Here's Where I Stand" speaks volumes about his philosphy of politics and life.

"I told my young staff that the way to be successful in politics and remain
true to your principles is to know the distinction between your principles and
your preferences. On your principles, you should never yield; you should be
prepared to be defeated. Nobody likes to be defeated, but you should let everybody know in the most articulate and thoughtful and civil way you can (you don’t go out and pick fights with people) that in certain matters that you define as matters of principle you will not budge, you cannot yield, you will not compromise. If you don’t have the votes or the winning argument, then you stand to
be defeated and rolled over, and you’ll just have to come back another day.

But on circumstances that are your preferences, you’d better be prepared to
compromise, because that’s where you can demonstrate that you can engage
with other people. Then you can, in fact, operate in the political realm.
So make a clear distinction anytime an issue arises—is this a point of principle
or is this a point of preference? An awful lot of politicians never understand
the difference. They compromise their principles and they fight to the
death on their preferences. They end up of course, being frustrated and unsuccessful--and failures at achieving their objectives."

Oh how I wish we had more conservative patriots in the House and Senate now, who knew the difference between principles and preferences; who would not budge, would not yield, on matters of principle.

More later maybe, from the miscellaneous file.

*I welcome your comments about Jesse Helms.