# Ted Cruz Endorses A Senate of White Supremacists **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [September 13, 2013, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-endorses-a-senate-of-white-supremacists/668752 "2013-09-13T06:25:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-endorses-a-senate-of-white-supremacists/668752/61 "2013-09-15T03:08:10Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > If I propose a law saying that, and I’m making this up, that for safety no person may listen to music while driving a car. I do this because in my mind it will increase road safety. It just so turns out that, say, 84% of minorities, but only 61% of whites listen to music while driving. Racists back my proposal because it will be a nice little “fuck you” to the minorities. Does that make me racist?. Fortunately, we don’t need an idiotic hypothetical to figure out whether Helms was a raging racist. The slightest familiarity with his political history answers that question. The real question now, one you should be asking yourself, is whether there’s any possible explanation for your idiotic hypothetical other than a racist desire on your part to defend odious racists. If you come up with an alternate hypothesis, lemme know. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-endorses-a-senate-of-white-supremacists/668752/62 "2013-09-15T04:04:19Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > This highlights the problem I have with the accusations of racism. All of those issues can be debated without the conclusion that the person who holds them is racist. They can, yes. But if a person holds a series of positions and they all seem to be worse for minorities than for white people, it’s fair game to point that out. This is one of the problems that comes up when people insist you can’t be a racist unless you make it explicit you really hate people of other races. That’s not the only kind of racism that exists. Although again, there are stories out there that show that Helms held black people in real contempt - at least if they suggested they were his equals. > [@](#): > > Can’t we debate the VRA, immigration, or a holiday for MLK without an accusation of racism? The last one is particularly vile. Really? That seems like the most obvious giveaway to me. Take a look at the states that raised the biggest objections to MLK Day or dragged their feet the most in making it happen: Arizona, which is caught up in a different, active race controversy; the Carolinas. Take a look at the states that still celebrate MLK Day jointly with holidays for Confederates: Mississippi and Alabama. Virginia had a joint MLK-Lee-Stonewall Jackson holiday for a while but they now mark the occasions separately. I’ll add that > [@](#): > > What if I think that MLK’s personal failings make him not deserving of a holiday, but support civil rights nonetheless? Then I hope you hold everybody to that standard and not just MLK. JFK and FDR had the same personal failing and they were both on money. Ideally that’s a policy you should have expressed earlier and not just mentioned for first time when the holiday was proposed. > [@](#): > > What if I don’t think that every good thing in history needs paid day off? That kind of dismissive comment doesn’t really help you. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-endorses-a-senate-of-white-supremacists/668752/63 "2013-09-15T06:18:33Z")
> [@jtgain](#): > > Can’t we debate the VRA, immigration, or a holiday for MLK without an accusation of racism? Not the VRA, at any rate. ---
**Author:** ![Flyer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/flyer/32/7298_2.png) [@Flyer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyer)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-endorses-a-senate-of-white-supremacists/668752/64 "2013-09-15T06:20:32Z")
I guess the people slamming Jesse Helms have never heard of Robert Byrd. > [@](#): > > I shall never fight in the armed forces with a negro by my side … Rather I should die a thousand times, and see Old Glory trampled in the dirt never to rise again, than to see this beloved land of ours become degraded by race mongrels, a throwback to the blackest specimen from the wilds. > **[Robert Byrd | Ku Klux Klan](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd#Ku_Klux_Klan)** > > In the early 1940s, Byrd recruited 150 of his friends and associates to create a new chapter of the Ku Klux Klan in Sophia, West Virginia. > As a young boy, Byrd had witnessed his adoptive father walk in a Klan parade in Matoaka, West Virginia. While growing up, Byrd had heard that "the Klan defended the American way of life against racemixers and communists". He then wrote to Joel L. Baskin, Grand Dragon of the Realm of Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, who responded that he would ... ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 6:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-endorses-a-senate-of-white-supremacists/668752/65 "2013-09-15T06:33:32Z")
> [@Flyer](#): > > I guess the people slamming Jesse Helms have never heard of Robert Byrd. > [Robert Byrd - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Byrd#Ku_Klux_Klan) :rolleyes: > [@Marley23](#): > > The Democrats had Robert Byrd until recently, but when people spoke positively about him, they praised him for rejecting the Klan, not for maintaining a consistent philosophy from his youth to the present day. Byrd wrote that in the 1940s (before he was a Senator) and repudiated those views. Helms never did that. They both voted against the Civil Rights Act, but only Byrd changed his mind about it. Helms called it the most dangerous piece of legislation in American history. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2013, 8:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-endorses-a-senate-of-white-supremacists/668752/66 "2013-09-15T08:08:59Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > :rolleyes: > > Byrd wrote that in the 1940s (before he was a Senator) and repudiated those views. Helms never did that. They both voted against the Civil Rights Act, but only Byrd changed his mind about it. Helms called it the most dangerous piece of legislation in American history. Even Harry Truman attended Klan rallies in his youth, and he was the POTUS who integrated the armed forces. People can change and morally improve themselves. But Jesse Helms never did, and Ted Cruz almost certainly never will. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/ted-cruz-endorses-a-senate-of-white-supremacists/668752.md?page=3)