The KKK Took My Rubbish Away

Brian Doherty | January 11, 2005

The Supreme Court lets stand a decision from an Appeals Court that Missouri violated the Ku Klux Klan's free speech rights by forbidding them from participating in one of those highway clean-up programs that gives them a sign paid for by the state noting their help. Missouri wanted to keep the KKK out of the program; the Appeals Court said they couldn't; the Supreme Court seems to agree.

[Link, and headline, from Ivan Osorio, great Ramones fan and great American]

Comments

|1.11.05 @ 4:33PM|#

Will the signs be mounted on burning crosses? The article wasn't too clear on that point. I'm sure that the JFK "eternal flame" technology could be incorporated.

digamma|1.11.05 @ 4:36PM|#

I can't disagree with the legal reasoning, but if I were Missourian, I'd be pretty embarassed by it. No coastal snob could have written it better.

The only solution is for them to scrap the adopt-a-highway program ASAP.

|1.11.05 @ 4:37PM|#

Why not keep the progam, but remove all the signs?

The last time they got a stretch highway, multiple signs had to be replaced at large taxpayer expense. What a waste of time.

"Ah, those bums won their court case so they're marching today."

|1.11.05 @ 4:38PM|#

And once the location of the KKK's stretch of highway is published on the interweb, thousands of people will drive long distances to dump their garbage there..

|1.11.05 @ 4:39PM|#

Put the sign up, then watch it be torn down. I agree with sulla, the signs seem a giant waste.

|1.11.05 @ 4:41PM|#

And an Indian will weep.

|1.11.05 @ 4:42PM|#

Maybe this is a different case, but I read that in one state where the Klan had been denied by the state, but allowed by court, they had their stretch of highway revoked for lack of care and maintanence of their site.

I would be quite surprised if the Klan did this just for publicity and not out of the goodness of their hearts.

|1.11.05 @ 4:46PM|#

Not only will people drive out of their way to provide garbage for the white trash to pick up, but anyone picking up garbage becomes a target for the homeboys to practice popping a few caps on.

Isn't that what they call a win-win situation?

|1.11.05 @ 4:53PM|#

Mo,

Don't know if it's the same stretch of highway you're referring to, but a stretch near St. Louis was renamed the "Rosa Parks Expressway" or something in response to one of these Klan court cases. Who says politicians have no sense of humor?

|1.11.05 @ 5:10PM|#

What a sad state of affairs! I WANNA BE SEDATED! With the present conditions, the decision was fair. But look at what's happening. Mo. taxpayers have to subsidize these racists and the Mo. government probably engages in racism of its own that goes by the name, "affirmative action". SELL THE STREETS! With private roads, this case wouldn't be an issue.

"Racism is the most primitive form of collectivism"

Ayn Rand

|1.11.05 @ 5:27PM|#

Digamma -- I am a Missourian, and I am embarrassed. (And yes, I believe this stretch of highway was renamed the "Rosa Parks Expressway" to try to rebalance the scales.)

Taking down the signs is no answer. The reason various groups volunteer to clean up along the highway is the public recognition and PR value to their group. Take away the signs and you take away much of the incentive to participate.

This is all due to the inherent logical impossibility of "public" property that is supposedly owned by "everyone" -- a large, diverse group with widely varying values and interests. Theoretically, we all own the highway; theoretically, we all have the right to participate in the highway clean-up program. It's the same thing with creches on "public" property. Your contribution to the use of the land offends me, and therefore violates my right as partial owner and controller of the property. But keeping you from contributing violates your same rights. As long as any property is owned by government, it is a problem with no solution.

|1.11.05 @ 5:32PM|#

"As long as any property is owned by government, it is a problem with no solution."

Word. I was gonna say it, but you got there first.

|1.11.05 @ 6:12PM|#

Rick-

I don't see how MO taxpayers are subsidizing the Klan in a strict accounting sense. The cost of a few signs is almost certainly less than the long-term labor costs associated with keeping highways clean. Indeed, I thought that adopt-a-highway schemes were originally conceived as a way to save the taxpayers some money and replace public employees with private volunteers.

Now, it is unfortunate that these racists have taken advantage of it, but that doesn't invalidate the basic purpose of the program, any more than racist web sites invalidate the virtue of free speech.

|1.11.05 @ 6:13PM|#

Besides, didn't Kramer adopt a highway? Who says that such programs only attract freaks?

Oh, wait a minute...

Stormy Dragon|1.11.05 @ 6:59PM|#

I remember one state that came up with a rather creative solution to a similar situation. They gave the Klan group a highway...

The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Highway.

Needless to say, the Klan group soon ended up getting kicked out for failing to meet the 'twice a month' requirement.

|1.11.05 @ 8:33PM|#

Boo hoo, the Klan manages to put up a sign. I'd be more peeved at the state throwing away my tax dollars not only fighting such an obvious lost cause, but then attempting to appeal it as well. Did they really need the Supreme Court to tell them that they couldn't do that?

|1.11.05 @ 8:52PM|#

I think the real question here is:
Will the klan make extra wide lanes for their stretch of highway?

|1.11.05 @ 9:05PM|#

thoreau,

Good point. When you consider the clean up costs that are defrayed by the Klan for that one section of highway, the MO taxpayers can't be said to be, on net, subsidizing the Klan. But, they are being forced to subsidize a small amount of advertising for them. And it is surely irksome to some that those few dollars go to promoting the Klan. As I said, I support the Supreme court's decision in this case, and I support those type of clean up programs regardless of what groups, as long as they don't commit force or fraud, avail themselves of them.

But, these types of programs are certainly inferior remedies compared to the sole equitable one-privately owned roads. Also, I really liked your free speech analogy.

drf|1.11.05 @ 9:23PM|#

hey sulla...

missouri nazis?

we have two comments, the following from the blues brothers, and of course, indiana jones's from the third raiders from which to choose.

and for the extra trash there, they'd just have their klukies take care of it ("california thing", not exact same quote, but i wanted to throw a fletch lives! one in, too)

rick - i made fun of a colts fan for you the other day. at least vanderjagt is being a tough kicker about it :)

|1.11.05 @ 9:26PM|#

Why don't give the KKK what they want? Put it on a stretch of a 10-lane highway where the speed limit is 70 mph. Ask that they wear robes when cleaning it.

Great PR!

|1.11.05 @ 10:20PM|#

White trash collects trash, and the Circle of Life goes on.

|1.11.05 @ 10:38PM|#

When the Nazis adopt a road, Blitzkrieg Bop will be the song, if we stick with the Ramones.

|1.11.05 @ 10:40PM|#

I need to know where this stretch of highway is located.

10000 paper cups full of dogshit are waiting to be distributed.

|1.12.05 @ 3:38AM|#

Something about the solution to bad speech is more speech.

Let the KKK have their signs, it is embarrasing, but a lot of things are. Let the KKK have their signs and the black panthers have theirs.

No state mandated affirmative action, no state racism. And people will see, when market forces prove that a man is a man, that the whole thing is silly.

|1.12.05 @ 5:01AM|#

Back when I had a convertible, I was driving on I-5 headed south to San Francisco during golden hour in the summer (even the brown hills and eucalyptus trees of southern Oregon and northern California can look beautiful at time of the year) and just after the exit for Ashland, Oregon I came across one of these highway clean-up signs; it was sponsored by the United Federation of Planets. :) The whole time I was in Castro I thought about that sign.

I still remember the song I was listening to:

The Allman Brothers

Midnight Rider

Well, I've got to run to keep from hiding
And I'm bound to keep on riding
And I've got one more silver dollar
But I'm not gonna let them catch me, no
Not gonna let 'em catch the midnight rider
And I don't own the clothes I'm wearing
And the road goes on forever
And I've got one more silver dollar
But I'm not gonna let them catch me, no
Not gonna let 'em catch the midnight rider
And I've gone by the point of caring
Some old bed I'll soon be sharing
And I've got one more silver dollar
But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no
Not gonna let them catch the midnight rider
But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no
Not gonna let them catch the midnight rider
But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no
Not gonna let them catch the midnight rider
But I'm not gonna let 'em catch me, no
Not gonna let them catch the midnight rider

|1.12.05 @ 5:02AM|#

even the brown hills and eucalyptus trees of southern Oregon and northern California can look beautiful at time of the DAY

Mexile|1.12.05 @ 5:03AM|#

A lifetime ago I was part of a group that coordinated security for a Saint Patrick's Day parade. Why the Klan wanted to join the parade was a mystery to me, but they did... so what the hey... we just offered them a slot at the very end, and said we'd move the cops to the front... and redirect the parade through the Projects.

Trash for White Trash... I like it!

|1.12.05 @ 8:19AM|#

I say they should split the highway in half lengthwise: give the Klan one side, and the Nation of Islam the other, and let nature run it's course.

|1.12.05 @ 11:04AM|#

A little after the celebration over defeating the "Jew lawyers" dies down, it's going to dawn on the good ol' boys that they just fought and PAID for the right to pick up other people's trash. Way to go!

Paul Woodford|1.12.05 @ 12:28PM|#

My favorite Adopt-a-Highway sign is on I-5 in California, somewhere between LA and Bakersfield:

Adopt a Highway
Next 36 Miles
California Correctional Facility

|1.12.05 @ 1:37PM|#

Gary:

I was headed north in the same area a couple of years ago and saw a sign on 101 just south of Eureka that said that that part of the road was maintained by the Humboldt Area Pagan Alliance. Ah, California.

|1.12.05 @ 6:38PM|#

"But, these types of programs are certainly inferior remedies compared to the sole equitable one-privately owned roads."

I would like to see that map. Would the toll on each privately owned section be the same (if they actually ended up being contigious), or would one just be able to buy existing roads that taxpayers paid to have built?

If the KKK wants to do something positive, let them.

|1.13.05 @ 12:48AM|#

Dan,

Private roads need not all be toll roads. There are far, far more government toll roads. Businesses might pool together and pay for them. Or home owner associations or a combination of the two. Or some dynamic that we haven't thought of might come into play. Where there is a profit motive, there is a way.