I have not looked at my Johnson City Press or Greeneville Sun today, so maybe that is why I have missed the story, but here it is after 4 o’clock, and as I browsed Post Politics, I found a story out of Greeneville, TN. I only live about 10 minutes or so from Greeneville, so this piqued my interest.
Apparently, someone or a group of people claiming to be from the Klan spread flyers titled “10 Steps to a Better America.” These flyers were left in a predominately African-American neighborhood earlier this month. The local residents a upset, and rightfully so.
The Greeneville Police Dept. thinks otherwise. They say that the distributors were only possibly guilty of littering. Were they not also guilty of trespassing? I hope to never see anyone distributing flyers in my yard while wearing a hood. (I am a supporter of the 2nd Amendment and private property rights. It is a person’s duty to protect their family from anyone who would sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, especially if they are wearing masks.) I hope that the Greeneville Police are taking this seriously, even if they are right and no other crimes were committed.
I have not seen the flyer myself, but I was able to find one on the internet that appears to be the same one shown on the video in the WJHL broadcast. If so, there are no threats so it would be difficult to charge them with much more. Ignorance is not a crime in and of itself. Neither is harboring racist beliefs. Maybe I am missing something that they can be charged with.
The Greeneville Police do say that this is freedom of speech. It is, but crimes were committed. Littering and trespassing were committed. If the people were going door to door handing this out, there would have been no crime. But if someone sneaks under a cover of darkness to distribute this material, they knowingly littered. They knowingly trespassed. I suggest that the GPD go after these people and charge them with what they can, consitutitionally. (Please don’t say it was hate speech. That goes against the equal protection under the law.) Make sure to keep an eye on these areas so that you can be sure it was nothing more than handing out literature.
And to all you pro-KKK people that may end up reading this story: Do not tell me that they meant nothing by this. Why would you give an African-American a piece of literature saying, “We must secure an existence for ourselves and the future for our White Christian Children!” Would that not be something you would tell to whites?
I remember during the last Presidential election, that I got a flyer placed on my car while I was at school. The flyer said to vote for Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate. (I did vote for Baldwin.) In this flyer, it said that the US government was responsible for 9/11 as they bombed the WTC. I believe it may have even had some racial things in it. It would not surprise me a bit to find out that the same people passed out that nonsense. I know enough about politics to know that this was something with which the Constitution Party had nothing to do, but it reflected bad on the Constitution Party. Several teachers knew that there was no way I was voting for Obama, and that McCain was not getting my vote because he was nothing more than a RINO. They knew that I was voting for Baldwin. After this was left on their windshield, I felt the need to tell them that this was something some wacko had come up with, not the Constitution Party. I did not want those views to reflect on me. Alas, there are some people in this area that have more than just a screw loose.