OPINION - EDITORIAL

EDITORIALS: Hate will fester in the dark; and will grow worse

Don’t let germs fester in the dark

A couple of items made the news last week involving white nationalists, semi-kluxers, quasi-Nazi types and those living around (or in) the dark side of American politics.

And not just American politics. Because these people have a worldwide following. For, as the book of Job says, the infernal one goes to and fro on the Earth--the whole Earth.

These minor characters on the American stage can steal the show if the rest of us aren't careful. Like those Westboro Church types who protest military funerals: If they take the headlines, shame on the headline writers. They should be given as much space needed, deep down in the story, to serve as testimony at Judgment Day. But quote them on the jump.

Some fools interrupted a writer last week at a Washington, D.C., bookstore, and the whole thing was filmed. Or at least recorded. Film doesn't seem to be in style any longer.

Get this: They were chanting, "This land is our land." Supposedly to protest the left-leaning author during a promotion. A more, say, well-read person would understand the folk song that made the phrase famous, and the person who wrote it, his politics, and the notion of irony.

Did we actually laugh at the video? God help us, we did. And we weren't laughing with them, but at them. We could no more stop watching the video than we could stop watching maggots putter around in coffee grounds and banana peels. Somebody once called this the fascination of the repellent.

On the same day, this very newspaper had an Arkansas-related story about a deceased professor at Arkansas Tech, some reading assignments, long-ago accusations of anti-Semitism, and a scholarship in his name. There was some sort of a rally (they were against), and a more local fool showed up to show his backside, as Mama would say. Daddy would've put it plainer.

From the story's last paragraph:

"The protest became tense when a young man who called himself a 'white nationalist survivalist' and who wore a T-shirt saying 'Death to all Christ killers,' showed up. Defending the scholarship, he later said he was a white supremacist and said his T-shirt was referring to Jews, including those living today."

Well.

Somebody get that guy's name. Not that he's broken any laws, yet. But that T-shirt is what experts at trial, always at trial, call a red flag.

That should be the whole point: Get their names. Get these guys (they're always guys) on record. Video them, film them, record them, as was done in Washington. And let them rally! A hundred times! These types of night crawlers will only fester in the dark. The rest of us should lift the rocks they're under and let the sun shine. It's a great disinfectant.

It's a public service to let these people--always on a downward trajectory, no matter how low they go--march. And speak. And get it out of their systems.

First, because to do otherwise would be like shaking a Coke bottle and setting it down for the next unsuspecting customer to pick up--and to have it explode all over a nice shirt.

Second, it's a public service because the rest of us are forewarned, thus forearmed. At least with knowledge that these people are out there. Maybe behind us. NB: Ted Kaczynski was in hiding much too long.

All this is predictable, so we'll predict it again: When in the course of human events those without much imagination or education need somebody to blame for their lot in life, they'll blame the Jews. They're a time-tested target. And if the Jews aren't handy at the moment, there'll still be black folks, homosexuals, the Irish, yankees, wimmen, Mes'icans, Injuns, the gub-mint or them lyin' newspapers. One scapegoat will do as well as t' other.

These characters, to misuse the word, take all the romance out of the Old South, and instead remind us of all that was wrong in these latitudes for 400 years. Call them unreconstructed. Call them backward and unlettered. But don't shut them up. They'd metastasize.

Editorial on 05/05/2019

Upcoming Events