The Pink Flamingo :: Should Symbols of Hate Be Banned or Are They Free Speech?

Yesterday I had something interesting happen. The day began with a notification that J. T. Ready had made a comment about an article I’d done back in September.

“Intelligent people have become immune to the third grade schoolyard name calling. Brave folks are facing the problems our society faces head on with workable and mature solutions instead. The intellectual deficit your side consistently presents is blatantly depicted here in your poor choice of credible sources for information in forming your rant. The New Times and the Anarchist Coalition can hardly be considered sources of reliable non-biased material from which to form any reasonable opinion. So go ahead and continue calling we patriotic Americans with ideas followed up by legitimate action all the nasty names you possibly want. It is futile and infantile. People are waking up to the threats to our liberties and making a stand regardless of your childish antics. That's the real good news in all this immature drivel of yours.
JT Ready”

For those of you who don’t know who he is, J.T. Ready is a serious anti-immigration activist in Arizona. He is also associated with the National Socialist Party. The SPLC has documented his activities. It is hard to wriggle out of the photo provided by the SPLC and I don’t think the photo-shopped it.

Now, here is the question: Do we discount the fact that Ready considers himself a “patriotic American” because he is a member of the National Socialist Party? I’m sure he does consider himself “patriotic”. When does one man’s patriotism become “hate crime” and when does another’s become “anarchy”? It all leads me to a train of thought: Was I “fair and balanced” the way I reported his story? Did I bother to get his side of it?

The answer is simple. No, I did not bother to get his side of the story. Is it necessary, in order to be “fair and balanced” to get a member of the National Socialist’s side of the story? In order for speech to remain free, are we required to have both sides of a story, even when everything that other side stands for is abjectly despicable?

Unfortunately, I think it is. So, I sent Mr. Ready an email asking if I could interview him. I’ve yet to hear from him. I want to know why he feels the way he does, why he believes what he does, and how did he arrive at his beliefs. I think this is a valid series of questions to ask of anyone, no matter what they believe.

IS HATE SPEECH PROTECTED BY THE 1ST AMENDMENT?
I know that Mr. Ready has as much of a right to believe what does as I have a right to be a Republican Episcopalian with delusions of best-sellers dancing through my head. I also know if we wish to be honest about maintaining our right to free speech, we, unfortunately, must fight to protect the right for Mr. Ready and his colleagues to say what they want to say. That’s why our ancestors fought for freedom.

I guess I go back to Mr. Puckett, my high school journalism teacher. He was a remarkable man, a retired colonel, true patriot, good Republican, former POW, and the most open-minded person I ever met. He was captured during the battle of Tubruk He could not hide the scars on his hands and wrists that were the result of being brutalized in a Nazi POW camp during World War II. He spoke fluent German and was the translator for the American POWs. When he would translate something the Germans did not like, they would brutalize him. One time one guard slammed his hands into a bucket of water, with a think but razor sharp coat of ice on it. Both wrists were slashed to the point where he nearly bled to death.

After his escape he rejoined the Army and was with our troops when they liberated the Nazi death camps. For some strange reason, Mr. P. was the one sent in to deal with the fate of humans who had been experimented upon. He told us he found people who had been experimented upon to the point where they no longer resembled human beings. Mr. P. was the one who had the courage to, as he called it, “end their suffering”. He said that was the only humane thing he could do. That night he began drinking, and continued to do so until the early 1970’s.

Even though he saw the very worst the Nazi “scientists” had done to their fellow humans, Mr. P. never failed to tell us that in order to understand history we needed to understand even the worst of times and to comprehend how those people thought. When he described the events leading to World War II, he never condemned, he only asked us to think. Then, afterward, he told us his story and showed us the scars.

If Mr. Puckett could be fair, so can I.

SHOULD “HATE” SYMBOLS BE BANNED?
This week have been presented with the example of someone hanging a noose outside an office at Columbia University. The noose is a symbol of death, of control, of terror, and of over-lords who controlled the fate of entire families.

There are two aspects of the “noose”. First is the Wild West connotation of Hanging Judge Parker (who was overturned on appeal as often as the 9th District is today). And there was the vigilante justice of Judge Roy Bean who would hang at a moment’s notice, often for the pickings of a saddle tramp’s pocket, his gun, and his horse.

The noose, as in public execution was also the symbol of law and order. It was the civilized and humane way to execute a condemned person, far superior than Madam la Guillotine, which had been deemed utterly barbaric. The public hanging was reason for a holiday, complete with the picnic basket, fried chicken, lemonade, and the kiddies. It wasn’t until early 20th Century New Mexico and the unfortunate incident during Black Jack Ketchun’s public hanging that hanging went behind closed prison doors, and then frowned upon. It seems Black Jack was just a little over-weight. When he was hung, his head had the misfortune of being separated from his shoulders.

Then the noose became the symbol of repression, terror and “Lynching” and control. In the community where I grew up in South Carolina, there was a hanging tree. During the Reconstruction years, and up until the Depression anyone, man or woman, any race who did not conform to the deprivations and demands of a certain individual there in the community met his fate on that tree. (The house that was still there a few years ago is horribly haunted. A friend rented it for a week, and I’ve heard her stories).

The “boss” of the share-croppers used the noose as control. His sociological heirs took it a step further, throughout the South, intimidating anyone who dared speak out against social injustice. It became a symbol of hatred. It is a symbol of suppressed intimidation and violence.

THE BURNING CROSS
Our delightful little friends in the KKK like to socialize around a burning cross. They also like to plant them in the lawns of people of whom they do not approve and then set the crosses on fire.

Do you know why the burning cross is such a symbol of terror and horror?

It all goes back to Nero and a few of his more open-minded successors. Christians weren’t all that socially acceptable. One way to keep those pesky little critters, who were multiplying like rabbits, under control was to give ‘em a taste of the tool which was becoming symbolic for them. One of Nero’s favorite ways to illuminate a dinner party as to round up the usual suspects, nail them to those convenient crosses, slather them in a mix of oil and pitch, then turn them into Tiki-Torches.

The last person to effectively use the burning crucified victim for Tiki Torches was a delightful little 15th Century ruler who was so good at it, and employed the technique to such effective means, he became known as Vlad the Impaler, Son of the Dragon.

The implications of a burning cross – you open your mouth, you step out of line – you die. The KKK learned the lessons of Vlad and modified them for modern civilization. Then the guys who like to plant ‘em and burn ‘em are so lacking in courage, they wear these stupid little white sheets and idiotic little white pointy hats. Would we be better off laughing at them, and making fun of them than becoming hysterical when they exercise their cowardly traditions?

Unfortunately, the burning cross is the sign of death and of terror exercised by men and women who would rather attack under the cover of darkness like some obscene little predatory rodent, which is what they are.

THE SWASTIKA
Once upon a time the swastika was a religious symbol.

“…The swastika (from Sanskrit svástika ) is an equilateral cross with its arms bent at right angles, in either right-facing (卐) or left-facing (卍) forms. The term is derived from Sanskrit svasti, meaning well-being. The Thai greeting sawasdee is from the same root and carries the same implication.
Archaeological evidence of swastika-shaped ornaments dates from the Neolithic period. It has long been widely used in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Hindus often decorate the swastika with a dot in each quadrant. In India, it is common enough to be a part of several Devanagari fonts. It is also a symbol in the modern Unicode and is often imprinted on religious texts, marriage invitations, and decorations. It is used to mark religious flags in Jainism and Buddhist temples in Asia….
… Carl Sagan in his book Comet. Sagan reproduces an ancient Chinese manuscript (the Book of Silk) that shows comet tail varieties: most are variations on simple comet tails, but the last shows the comet nucleus with four bent arms extending from it, recalling a swastika. Sagan suggests that in antiquity a comet could have approached so close to Earth that the jets of gas streaming from it, bent by the comet's rotation, became visible, leading to the adoption of the swastika as a symbol across the world…”

It later became a symbol for the various socialistic political parties in Europe, and was turned into the symbol of eternal hate by Adolf Hitler.

“…Because of its use by Hitler and the Nazis and, in modern times, by neo-Nazis and other hate groups, for many people in the West, the swastika is associated primarily with Nazism and white supremacy. Hence, outside historical contexts, it has become taboo in Western countries. The historical context of architectural decorations has sometimes been ignored in local efforts to remove swastikas from pre-World War II buildings.

On the other hand, millions of people of Indian origin live in the West, e.g. including over two million Indian-Americans in the United States, and Jain, Hindu and other Indian religions, festivals, marriages and ceremonies continue to use the swastika as their main religious and cultural symbol. The swastika symbol was popular as a good luck or religious/spiritual symbol in the United States, prior to its association with Nazi Germany. The symbol remains visible on numerous historic buildings, including sites that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It also appeared on tiles, lampposts, metal valves, tools, surfboards, stock certificates, brand names, place names, medals, commercial tokens, postcards, souvenirs, rugs and clothing….”

This is where our friend, J.T. Ready comes in. He is a member of the National Socialist’s Party. There is conclusive evidence that at least one member of the AZ State House is another associate. Both are actively involved in the anti-immigration movement. The symbol is now a hallmark of white supremacists, many of whom have openly endorsed Republican Congressman Ron Paul for President of the United States.

DON’T HIDE IT!
I am rapidly coming to the conclusion I would much rather have Mr. Ready and his associates wear their swastikas, proudly, everywhere, all the time, openly, in public. I don’t want to see this symbol now associated with hate repressed and put back in the proverbial White-Europeans-Only closet. I want it out in the open. I want to see who is proudly wearing it. I want to be abler to identify our conservative and (God help us all) Republican political leaders who are associating with these people. If these people are so dedicated to the philosophy behind this swastika, then they should proudly wear it. (I think you get the connotation here).

Today, thanks to our very lax liberal attitudes in education, Western History is not being adequately taught in schools. Our kids don’t understand the horror behind that symbol and the millions of innocent people exterminated. Political Correctness run amok won’t allow those lessons to be taught.
The pathetic and ignorant fool who does not know history is doomed to repeat it. The only way to keep this obscene period of history from being repeated is to teach it, and expose the roaches of white supremacy to the light of day. Have you noticed how they are coming farther and farther out of their little closets? It is sickening, but bring it on! Don’t force them back inside, instead, let them come out and show their faces.

I’m afraid we will be shocked when we discover who some of them are. And now you know why I want them out in the open, I want to know who they are. I want to know who their friends are. I want to know how many friends they have. And – I want to know who is financing them.

Don’t you?

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