Chocolate starts young......







follow the M&M trail....

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Well said

I would hate to be judged on what I did or thought in my 20's...some was good...some was....

well




embarressing!


and some, just naive...not bad, but the years roll by and over youthful idealism.

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Being a racist is an entirely different thing than being a recruiter for a racist organization that persecuted many different groups of minorities. I think it is a bit like being a serial killer on death row. You destroy lives around you then at a point later in life you see that you will be held to account for the horrible things that you have done. "My Bad" doesn't cut it sometimes.

As to W, had he killed someone or been convicted then I would say he is fit to be a representative of the people. Lets not try to equate being a drunk to being a overt racist working to recruit more racist.

BTW it is my understanding that Byrd was in the KKK until he was at least in his thirties and made several other expressions of white superiority after his bit with the Klan was done. This does not even address his votes against both Marshal or Thomas and his filibuster of the civil rights acts in 60's.

I said before, I hope that God is loving and forgiving so the Mr Byrd will have peace in the afterlife. I wonder though, how much peace on this earth did Byrd and the Klan deny innocent people in our not so distant past.

some people might call that fickle

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"Free people are not equal & equal people are not free." --- Mackinac Center for Public Policy

People join organizations - like KKK - for a variety of reasons including family "tradition", peer pressure, political "advancement" in small town politics, social reasons, and racist beliefs. If you are a hard core unchanging racist - you don't join, and then drop out a few years later. Like I said - young men do some dumb unthinking stuff that they often regret later. When you look at the broad spectrum of people that have joined and quit groups like KKK and equate each individual with a serial killer, incapable of changing then you are just as damaging in your view as they are in theirs.

As for "my bad", if that were all it was, then I'd agree - but it's not. Sen. Byrd has not only repeatedly apologized and expressed regret for his involvement - he has a legislative record that backs his words.

In other words - you have to be a "racist" or have killed someone in order to count? In other words, drunks and druggies and are allowed the luxery of being "able to change" but once a racist always a racist? Racists can change or amend their views? Much like your example with being convicted or killing someone - I would be far more critical had Byrd lynched or terrorized or been convicted of some form of hate crime but there is no evidence of that.

He joined the KKK when he was 23 or 24 in his words - and was in it 1942-43 but, there is evidence that he continuied to have affiliations with them until 1946 according to a letter he wrote dated then. And yes, he did filibuster the civil rights act, that is rather infamous. But the point is - his views changed and he regretted them and he has a legislative record to show repentence and regret. Certainly, the NAACP thinks so.

It's up to the gods to judge and I would hope they would judge the fullness of a life lived, not just a portion as man is want to do.

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I'll insert the narrative Byrd defenders want you to believe...

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"You get the respect that you give" - cnredd

No.

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Who would have guessed a Grand Kleagle could be a greenhorn
and still qualify for such a lofty position. Maybe membership was so
low at the time the organization was desperate. Somehow I doubt
that was the case.

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Aid to Somalia? Are you kidding?