Here is an article on the Phelps thing I mentioned.
(And for anyone unfamiliar with the abbreviation, “GLBT”=“Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgender.”)
I’m curious to see how (or if) the efforts against terrorism will in the long term lead to a re-thinking of protection for dometstic terrorists and hate groups.
Because ya just can’t carry enough car batteries to pelt people with.
I don’t get it, the klan is a bunch of
mean old boogerbutts, plain and simple,
no one likes them, so why not spit
hockers on them and make it miserable
for them? They stink. They are not
even human so why should they
have any rights at all?
I thought that this was a particularly clever way to deal with the Klan:
Klan road named for Rosa Parks
Got to give mad propz to Missouri for that lovely twist of irony. 
Maybe if we rename all the public parks and other such venues that cities set aside for public rallies after famous civil-rights activists, they’ll simply run out of legal places to meet. 
I live in a fairly large city in Indiana - I have to agree with Yue Han here, for some reason this place really loves the KKK mentality. We had a Klan rally downtown not too long ago - perhaps in the summertime? I don’t even remember it getting any press coverage. I think that’s the best way to go - refuse to give them any press beyond the obligatory, “KKK rally to be held at X park at Y time,” so nobody accidentally wanders into it if they don’t want to. After all, “the only bad press is no press”, right?
Totally unrelated anecdote - In high school, my junior year particularly, I was given a plaque that says in very bold letters, “KKK Member”. It stands for “Kappa Kappa Kappa”, and was awarded for having a greater-than-A average in classes. I don’t know a single person willing to display that plaque; me, I threw mine away as soon as I got home. The GPA stands for itself; I won’t display anything on my walls or desks that makes such an awful inference at first glance. They could have given it some more thought, and used the entire name. 
To what degree can the activities be criminalized without running afoul of the right to freedom of speech. Here is what we have in Canada. Our constitutional freedom of speech protections are pretty much the same as in the USA. These anti-hate laws are relatively new, and therefore have not been seriously tested. So what do you think? Would any or all of the laws below have a chance in the USA?
My take on it is that with such laws, a hate group in Canada is prohibited from nastly little leaflets and advertisements, and if they get together for a rally, then they can be hauled off to the hoosegow because people are pitching bricks at them. In other words, their right to free speech is reasonably limited by everyone’s right to freedom from hate.
These anti-hate laws seem to me to be an extension in kind of laws such as “uttering threats” and “riot act”, which have stood constitutional tests in both Canada and the USA. So what do you think, gang? Given the constitutional right to freedom of speech, will these laws surive in Canada or could they survive in the USA?
First off, the overwhelming number of Klan members are not motivated so much by tapping into the essence of hate as they are driven by fear. The guys who rise to the top of the heap may, indeed, rely on hatred as their source of power (see the Stormfront or melvig web sites), but the run-of-the-mill member is simply facing a world that confuses and frightens him and looks to a mythical time when white Anglo-Saxon Protestant males (seemed to) rule the world (or, at least, the little corner of the South or Mid-West that they identify as the world).
This never justifies or mitigates the instances where they have, indeed, lynched or bombed or terrorized or humiliated those non-white or “ethnic” or non-Protestant fellow citizens. However, the Southern Poverty Law Center has done a pretty good job of destroying them as a political force. Aside from the issues I have with impinging “hate speech” laws against the First Amendment, it is simply counterproductive to outlaw their futile rallies thus “proving” to them that they are right and that only non-Protestant* non-whites still have free speech in the U.S.
*(Ironically, a few Klan groups have, in recent years, recruited among Catholics and have found some Catholics, ignorant of history, to join them.)
[Krusty]KKK? That’s not good…[/Krusty]
Actually, my brother went to high school with a guy named Kevin Kenneth Kellogg. You have to wonder what his parents were thinking… :eek:
I like the pledge drive idea king of spain mentioned, actually.
If you can’t beat them, join them. Put on a hood and a sheet and start marching with them. Of course, if you’d rather skip than march, or dance in a ridiculous manner, or hold up incredibly stupid and misspelled signs, feel free. If you had more people deliberately acting like fools in the white sheet and hood than actual Klan members, they would probably go home.
Why aren’t you people picking the obvious choise. Do what people do with Fred Phelps. Start a money drive, getting people to donate a set amount of money for each minute the Klan spends on their rally. People can choose how much they want to give per minute and you can give the money to the United Negro College Fund. Most importantly though, you have to make sure that the Klan knows full well about what you’re doing. If they find out that they’re helping fund such an organization, I think it will deter them from holding such long rallies.
It’s a simple way to deal with them and you’re helping a college fund.
Arnold Winkelreid: Perhaps ignoring them is an effective opposition tactic, but the counter-demonstration is even more effective in showing them how their views are reviled today. If, understandably, one does not view an active participation against these racist rallies to be a necessary duty, nonetheless one should commend and encourage those who do take the effort to organize against those groups in a more visible fashion.
Fair enough; I was just demurring at Fenris’s suggestion that being content to ignore the Klan implies that one has “one’s head firmly stuffed up one’s ass.” I’m all in favor of folks demonstrating against the Klan, even if I prefer to put in my own sidewalk time in protests involving other issues.
Someone wrote
“Yeah, that strategy worked so well with the Nazis” (referring to ignoring them).
But it’s apples and oranges. The Nazis committed numerous acts of violence against Jews and Communists; the police did nothing (except help, sometimes) and even non-Nazis approved. The Jews should have spoken up. Anyone in Germany who disagreed should have spoken up. It was Martin (?) a famous German philosopher who said “When they came for the Communists, I said nothing, when they came for the Socialists I said nothing, when they came for the Jews I said nothing, when they came for me there was nobody to say anything…”
How to deal with the Klan is to ignore the rallies and rhetoric. Instead, say something positive about tolerance and togetherness. Vote. Be active in community affairs. Be “radical” for what you believe in.
Actually I believe that the best way to avoid another Nazi Germany is for everyone to believe in something different. We should welcome opinions that are much different from ours. The only danger is that everyone agrees on something. It’s what James Madison called the “tyranny of the majority”. He knew what a majority could do. He didn’t >want< majority rule, he wanted so many opinions that no one opinion would hold sway. After all, a majority of nut cases in Parliament had declared war on the colonies. That was supposed to be a representative government!