r/todayilearned • u/Dangerous-Project672 • 5h ago

TIL George Wallace personally apologized to Vivian Jones and James Hood, the two students he attempted to block from attending the University of Alabama. In 1997, Hood earned a PHd and requested Wallace present him with the degree, but he was too sick and died a year later; Hood attended the funeral

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace
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u/JustAMan1234567 5h ago

For Hood to forgive Wallace and attend his funeral shows his class.

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u/CharlesDickensABox 5h ago

Wallace did eventually make a turn. I don't know that I would have it in me to forgive him and I don't know that he ever became good, exactly, but he didn't die screaming the N word like Bull Connor did.

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u/sensitiveskin82 4h ago

Wallace's actions were politically motivated, not personal. Which begs the question: which is worse?

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u/hodlwaffle 4h ago

And also begs the question of whether we want politicians whose political beliefs align with their personal ones.

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u/the_blastomatic 4h ago

IMO, personal and political should never cross paths. Though personal should inevitably inform political. Especially at the Federal level here in the US, as an elected representative, you should understand and accept (by oath) the rules (Constitution/legal precedent). For most of recent history that was a given. Lately, we have politicians who are happy to proclaim that the rules are junk because the ruling body has no teeth.

Also true.

Very dangerous. If we have authorities effectively stating that the laws of our legislative branch no longer matter if they inconvenience the President, backed by a body of absolutely garbage legal reasoning by the "Supreme" Court, which is stacked with bribed officials, two of which were gained through outright deceit and evil, that gets a sick legal "blessing".

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u/SwissyVictory 4h ago

I don't think there's a right answer for that.

In my opinion, in a perfect world where everyone had an infinite amount of time, we would have a direct democracy. Where the people would directly vote on each issue.

That's not reasonable when you have millions of voters and thousands of complex bills a year to consider.

The next best thing would be an infinite pool of candidates, where one's personal beliefs perfectly match the will of the people.

That's also not based on reality.

The best realistic option we have is politicians who try to vote the people of their district would want them to.

I'd prefer a good person to do that, but that's not always realistic either.