Lester Maddox is dead

[Chang Style Novice]

But he gets no RIP from me. That murdering hillbilly bigot shoulda been electrocuted forty years ago.

Break out the champagne, everybody, another one bites the dust!

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/25/obituaries/25CND-MADD.html?ex=1057204800&en=923f6d23a20b057e&ei=506 2&partner=GOOGLE

[PHILBERT]

Name rings a bell, don't know who he is, but I suddenly (seriously) smell cooked chicken in my college class right now.

I agree with you, except I can't drink the champagne.

[Chang Style Novice]

He was a notorious segregationist governor of Georgia, and sponsored all kinds of brutal supression of the civil rights movement. He ran his re-election campaign with an ax handle as a symbol of his committment to racial inequality and the lengths he would go to to protect it. He may not have actually killed anyone himself, but neither did Hitler. Nah-mean?

[PHILBERT]

Im pretty sure Hitler killed someone by himself.

Now Charles Manson? If I recall HE never killed anyone, just his cult. I might be wrong.

[Spark]

Slight of stature, Mr. Maddox was nonetheless direct and outspoken in the defense of his convictions, which he wrapped in a states' rights banner. These included the view that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites, that integration was a Communist plot, that segregation was somewhere justified in scripture and that a federal mandate to integrate schools was "ungodly, un-Christian and un-American."

His opinions were no less fixed on other issues. He was opposed to drinking, smoking, liberal clergymen, atheism, socialism, the press, civil rights workers, "do-gooder foundations" and the wearing of miniskirts in the state Capitol. He advocated short haircuts for men, the Baptist Church (at least, its more conservative members), the Georgia Chamber of Commerce and the singing of "God Bless America," a tune for which apparently he had an insatiable appetite. He liked it so much that at one public event, he ordered that it be sung no fewer than three times, and people in the crowd could see tears in his eyes

WHAT A FREAK
I WISH I HAD AN AXE HANDLE NEAR THIS GUY BEFORE HE CROAKED
OH WELL FRED PHELPS WILL DO

[Suntzu]

spark........ why do u hate America....

[rubthebuddha]

not quite sure he hates america. if disliking a bigot whose beliefs run contrary to the majority of items in the bill of rights and subsequent amendments -- someone whose very existence bred hate -- i'd say spark would make a pretty darn good "american."

mind you, i said "disliking a bigot," not "disliking a bigot's right to his own beliefs." a belief itself is free, action isn't. beliefs don't affect other people, but taking action does. when that action negatively affects another person, then it's time to re-evaluate.

[Suntzu]

sarcasm slide right past ya, huh?… my bad...

[rubthebuddha]

nah, that one would be my bad. :o

enough political discussion going on these days, can't tell who's hatin who anymore. ;)

[TonyM.]

Thanks Chang. that's a relief. I pity him about as much as jeffrey Dahlmer which is not at all. His family should change their name and write him out of the family tree. What a horrible stupid f-ck.

[African Tiger]

Don't worry gang. Satan was expecting his dried up ass back in the 60's anyway.

Hey Lester, let's see how fast fried chicken cooks in a lake of Fire and Brimstone! :D

[rubthebuddha]

i'm sure the prince of darkness has ways of making even the least flammable or the quickest burning last for an eon or six. ;)

[Christopher M]

Yeah, but, "those who celebrate victory are bloodthirsty" or something, eh?

[Chang Style Novice]

Are you talking to me, Chris? I think you must be misremebering. I was delighted that U.S. victory in Iraq was so fast and relatively peaceful. I am now chagrined that it's turning into a quagmire of guerilla warfare against our troops (but not surprised.)

[Christopher M]

No. Sorry. I wasn't talking to anyone or alluding to Iraq.

I was suggesting, via allusion to Sun Tzu, that celebrating someone's misfortune and suffering, no matter how lousy that person might be... well, that some people might disagree with that.

It seemed like a different perspective on the issue. On a similar vein, perhaps more to the point, I could say "There but for the will God go us." On every account.

[TonyM.]

That's asuming your speaking of a person. I don't think a souless sociopath quite fits the bill.

[Chang Style Novice]

Maybe so, Chris, but I'm not shedding any tears for old Strom Thurmond, either. Maybe it makes me a bad Buddhist, but some people really are just wastes of perfectly good carbon, hydrogen and oxygen.