I don’t think that’s a very pertinent question, since the ACLU is likely to represent the Klan in a lawsuit if the application is denied.
That’s why I picked them. Do you think a KKK run government is likely to do the same for the ACLU? I’d rather have the ACLU in place defending the KKK than the KKK in power and hoping they’d defend minority rights. One of these groups will not make an effort to eliminate oppression and that’s the group I’d want in charge. If I could, I’d prevent the KKK from being in power completely, but with the protection of groups like the ACLU. There is no way in hell I would cry idealism and say they must be equally represented for a free and democratic society. I’ll tolerate some exceptions if it improves things as a whole
Well, I’m convinced.
Well, you should be. It’s self-evident. If you want to argue this restriction is warranted, have at it. But it’s a restriction.
I notice a lot of middles being excluded in this discussion.
Your powers of observation are remarkable.
Someone should remark upon them.
What people should remember is that what is and isn’t “bigotry” is really in the eye of the beholder and giving the government the power to sanction those they consider “bigoted” is quite dangerous and may not have the results one likes.
The idea that Zionism “is a form of racism and racial oppression” was an official proclamation of the UN for nearly twent years.
Similarly, many people genuinely believe that Affirmative Action is a form of racism and racial oppression.
Others feel that those calling for protecting gays against job discrimination are “infringing on religious liberty” or that people who criticized legalizing gay marriage as being akin to the KKK.
And of course, a huge number of countries in the 90s banned the movie Schindler’s List on the basis that it was supposedly bigoted against Germans and while they didn’t go quite as far, during the 70s, many German-American parents protested the airing of the miniseries The Holocaust, because they claimed it promoted hatred against their children.
For that matter, there was a time when it was considered quite normal to argue that Martin Luther King and the NAACP were the equivalent of the infamous White Citizens Councils and it wasn’t just idiot rednecks who thought this. It was argued by people like William Faulkner.
I did!
ETA: Responding to elucidator, not suggesting I argued like Faulkner.
I really was not trying to shape your argument. In fact, I prefer that you shape it, because your version of your argument seems a lot sillier than my version of your argument.
More like the ACLU. You know, the people who defended the rights of the Nazis to march in Skokie?
No. If we restrict anyone’s rights, we become your version of the KKK. That is already what happened when Wilson fomented anger against people who opposed him during the First World War. He portrayed them as being the sort of people who were looking to harm the country, got the Congress to pass first the Espionage Act, (that had more to do with punishing “wrong” speech than with actually protecting the war effort), and then the Sedition Act that applied the same principles of censorship to the peacetime nation. That is also what happened during the various communist witch hunts, when people were denied jobs or denied access to housing because someone had put their names on a list of people eho had “bad” ideas. People blacklisted for being communist tended to not be caught carrying a bomb into the Capitol or even plotting to have someone else carry a bomb intl the capitol. They were blacklisted for simply thinking that one political philosophy was worth pursuing, even when they only wanted to talk about it.
Obfuscate? Non sequiturs? I am not sure that you know what those words mean in the context in which you employed them. I am arguing that punishing any group merely for having “bad” ideas is a step away from freedom. I already noted up thread that if this particular group had engaged in activities such as harrassment or vandalism, they might be rejected for their actions. You want to reject them for their ideas. It is neither obfuscatory nor a non sequitur to point out errors in your beliefs or a historical record that supports my position.
If I had tried to limit it to just “literal speech,” then I would have no problem prohibiting the group in the OP from getting their name on an “Adopt A Highway” sign. In actuality, I oppose any unnecessary and pointless censorship–which is what denying them a name on a sign is.
I am really not afraid that if a dozen or so frightened white people get the name of a group on a sign, we are going to face them overrunning the country.
I am concerned that allowing the government to decide who is “good” enough or “American” enough to get their name on a sign will lead to another Sedition Act or more Palmer raids.
No it is not. A neutral determination that this country support monogamy over polygamy* or a law that prohibits murder, regardless of its motive, is not the same issue as selecting a specific group to be put on an enemies list that allows the government to restrict any actions by them that would be perfectly legal and laudatory if any other group performed or attempted the same actions.
How?
Your analogy is so odd as to be difficult to address. We do not prohibit human sacrifice because we reject the mores of the Aztecs or similar groups. We prohibit human sacrifice because it is murder. Opposition to human sacrifice has more to do with rejection of murder than with rejection of the culture of any group that practiced it. We encourage groups to perform the service of cleaning litter from our roadsides. Prohibiting any group from doing that just because we have decided that we do not like their philosopy is not the same thing as rejecting murder, at all.
** Of course, there is a bit of by-play on the issue of polygamy with the Federal government getting into the act so as to coerce Utrah to behave like the rest of the country, but the laws against multiple spouse marriages were already on the books before that became a Federal issue.* 
This is sort of where I am at on the issue. Why can’t the task of cleaning litter be separated from the group performing the task? If the local Jewish Temple adopts a section of the highway, does that mean that Georgia (gasp) has endorsed the Jewish faith as a state religion? If NAMBLA adopts a highway does Georgia endorse sex with children?
Of course not. The adopt-a-highway program has always been a way for the state to pawn off their responsibility on others by guilting them into doing for free what the state is paid to do. It’s not an endorsement of any of the groups who participate.
If a tree falls across you and your racist neighbor’s driveway, and you both go out with chainsaws to clear it, does that mean you endorse his racist beliefs?
When I chop up my neighbor’s fallen tree he doesn’t have to put up a sign about it.
Even if he did, it doesn’t mean you endorse all of his opinions. “Bill Smith helped chop up this tree” on a sign in your yard doesn’t mean “I hate black people just like Bill Smith does”
The problem with being afraid to overreach is that the government is powerless to right any wrong. I’d rather a government try to do good and fail than not have the power to do so at all. We are all familiar with the abuses of the past. That should give us pause to get things right, not throw up our hands in futility and proclaim government impossible to do good
When those policies were enacted, was there an equal distribution of power on both sides? Were African Americans equal in all ways to whites, and AA tipped it in their favor? If people are honest with themselves, they’ll admit that no, things weren’t equal, and that’s why those policies came into being. To say that government shouldn’t try to solve any of these morality problems doesn’t make the problem go away.
Same thing with protecting gays now. Many people will complain about religious discrimination, but I’d rather the government have the power to try to correct a wrong than not even allowing them to have the conversation in the first place. Right now, objectively, there are a lot of things barred to gays. Many things such as adoption or visitation or inheritance rights are not given to gays, simply because they have the audacity to be gay. Let religious people argue their points, but if there is enough support and logic on one side to force through legislation, it should be done so with the will of the people behind it. Someday, when its not needed, or when homophobes outnumber everyone else in all levels of government, they can try to get rid of it
When a mistake is made, I usually look at why it was made. You’re advocating that we should remove the power to make or even correct mistakes. I think you need to narrow down your focus, because as society changes, it makes no sense to be stagnant no matter how much you idealize a previous society.
If you have a problem with those errors in judgement, the solution is to attack the errors and why they were made. Don’t try to eliminate the power to make errors in the first place because there are a lot of good things we can do. It sounds like you take all of these decisions that were made in the past and count them as mistakes or abuses if even one group disagrees, while those things with a huge majority support, not to mention logical, moral support, is ignored
Well so what if they wanted to ban Schindler’s List? Those idiots made a mistake? You know what would fix it? Unbanning it! Celebrating it! If in the future, the KKK becomes a perfectly fine, upstanding racist organization, let them adopt the highway then
Of course not, but that’s why the analogy doesn’t work; your neighbor is not a very good analogy for a state. If Joe next door wants to put up a pro-life sign, I couldn’t care less. If the state allows Joe to put a pro-life license plate on his car, it’s a bit different.
While there have been abuses in the past, and will be in the future, have we not grown past most of them? We look back and internment of the Japanese, slavery, communist witch hunts, etc. with distain for those who abused their powers. But do we look back at the 60’s and think LBJ shouldn’t have violated the right of whites to be racist by signing the Civil Rights Act? That the national guard shouldn’t have been mobilized to get those 7 kids into that Little Rock school? Do we think those who sat at lunch counters or refused to move from the back of the bus to be criminals? Some of those restrictions are just fine with me, some not. A pragmatist would be able to make a distinction, or admit error for a prior mistake.
I’d like your opinion on the rights of people we already restrict. Do you think it should be legal if a religion or culture or ethnic group practices, say, polygamy? What about female genital mutilation? Honor killings? I guess my question is how do you prevent those things from happening but still call ourselves free? After all, religion is just about the strongest and most deeply held belief for many people. How is it ok to tell those people they can’t do something, but its going overboard if we let an admittedly racist terrorist group with a long history of violence not adopt a freaking stretch of highway?
I say obfuscate because you are evading the point by bringing in irrelevant issues to mask what is a bad argument. I made the point that many freedoms have already been restricted, and rightly so, but you claim that we have not prevented anyone from promoting those actions and that it is up to those who believe in those ideals to convince others. Previously, you spoke about how its only a matter of free speech that this KKK issue touches upon, which is nuts. I don’t want the KKK to be able to adopt a highway but I fall short in calling for their actual speech to be suppressed. They can have their speech, just not their highway. Its no violation of their freedoms to have the government, with an existing set of criteria, decide they don’t meet it. Their crying on their Stormfront message boards is free and unrestricted and fine by me
We’ll just have to disagree then, I don’t think it will ever get that far. For the same reason why we can ban child porn and it doesn’t lead to a mass banning of pictures in general, I’m confident preventing the KKK from adopting a highway won’t lead to banning it for Republicans or even those Tea Party asshats
The ultimate justification for all laws is the same: protection. If a law doesn’t protect someone from something, it probably shouldn’t exist. In this case, I think it does more harm to society if we let the KKK get their highway.
And there are plenty of exceptions to special groups or situations. Can you pick up a gun and shoot someone in another country? If you’re in the military and we’re in a war you can. But if you wanted to sneak into Afghanistan and start shooting people you think are Al-Qaeda, don’t expect the full protection of US law. Police officers are allowed to put themselves in harm’s way, and react to perceived violence with violence. For many of us, depending on what state you live in, you are obligated to run away from violence, and the law is less clear if you put yourself in harm’s way on purpose. There are lots of legal groups who get more rights than others by the mere fact that they belong in those groups. To put it another way, the actual John Smiths and Jane Smiths in the KKK can adopt the highway, they just have to not be in the KKK first
No, its murder to you. In another culture, it may be a willing sacrifice, or as part of an honor killing. Now I know that neither of us wants that here, but the fact is that for the groups themselves, many of them don’t consider it murder. How do you balance what’s best and works for our society versus the rights of others who hold different beliefs? I believe at some point, we have to draw the line. And if that line is no honor killings but also the KKK can’t adopt a highway, I’m fine with it.
Only to the extent that we do not promote them again–like making silly rules to punish a group that has not broken any laws just because we do not like what they say. You seem to be quite happy to re-enact those laws; you simply have a different group against whom you would act.
And people in those times looked back at the original Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 with disdain, but still found motives in their hearts and minds to endorse those bad behaviors.
You complained about non sequiturs and then post this?
No one’s “right” to be racist has ever been denied. We simply outlaw actions that harm others based on racial perceptions. When the kids in Little Rock were denied the rights to an education at a specific location, they were offered protection, but no one else’s right to an education was infringed upon. Freedom riders, participants in lunch counter sit-ins, and Rosa Parks were all in violation of bad law–law that was changed because they were willing to accept the consequences of their actions in violating the law in order to persuade others that the laws were bad.
What law is being violated by allowing one group of people to “Adopt a Highway”? For that matter, how is their adoption of a highway an endorsement of either illegal or immoral behavior?
Polygamy is outside our particular culture, but not something about which I feel strongly, one way or another. Female genital mutilation is mutilation–the imposition of harm on another. Honor killings are murder. I oppose actions that harm others.
I am not sure why you think that allowing some people to pick up litter is intrinsically wrong in the same way as Female Genital Mutilation, but I disagree with your claim. If picking up litter is wrong for Klansmen, then it is wrong for Cub Scout troops and Brownies. If it is not wrong for church groups, it is not wrong for Klansmen. You want to impose a prohibition on people whom you do not like for “bad” thoughts and I see neither a practical nor a moral purpose for that prohibition.
I have already noted that if the particular organization that is seeking to adopt the highway is guilty of actual uncivil behavior, they may have forfeited their rights to proclaim their good citizenship through a government sanctioned activity. However, I have also noted that the Klan is a much fragmented cluster of multiple tiny organizations. Demonstrate that this particular group has violated the civil rights of others and I will support their banishment. Failing that, you are simply embracing the actions of Wilson, McCarthy, Falwell, and others in arguing that we should impose government sanctions on people for their beliefs.
The prohibition on child pornography is based on the presumption that one needs to harm a child to produce it. It was not originally outlawed because the images were bad, per se, so pictures are not threatened. Banning a small Klan group will probably not lead to the suppression of the Republican Party, but encouraging that sort of illogical suppression of rights will probably lead to the banishment of other groups in the future.
Well, we certainly mustr protect those empty beer bottles and discarded McDonald’s wrappers from the clutching fingers of the Klan. You do realize the contradiction in your own statment, I hope. You claim that if a law does not protect someone from something, it should not exist. You then turn right around and say that we should have a law that prevents people from picking up litter, even though picking up litter does not harm anyone.
We have a society with a set of beliefs. We outlaw the actions, (not the beliefs), of people who differ in regard to society’s views of those actions and hold them accountable when they do violate the laws. We do not, however, forbid people to pick up trash just because we do not like the way they think. And I am fine with that.
I suppose so. But what if NAMBLA wanted to adopt a highway? One compelling reason not to allow this is that they advocate something that is against the law. But doesn’t the KKK advocate discrimination in its most extreme form, and isn’t discrimination against the law also? I think this could be reason enough to justify denying the application.
It’s worth noting that the subjective intent of the Klansmen is relevant to whether the speech is protected.
Again, the KKK is not a monolith. If the particular group has advocated breaking the law or has engaged in illegal activity, then it might have forfeited its rights to getting its name on a sign. If it is nothing more than a dozen frightened white folks who talk about “preserving” white culture, they are not breaking any laws or infringing on any rights and deserve the opportunity to serve their community in the same way that anyone else might. (There are thirteen separate Klan groups organized in Georgia.)
The current status appears to be that the State denied the request on the combined basis of an unsafe road, (65 m.p.h. limit with curves), and bad publicity. The Missouri group that wanted to do the same thing won their case and were allowed into the program, although they were later dropped for failing to actually pick up the trash. The KKK is asking the ACLU to intervene.