From hate to humanity -- an appropriate response
What more fitting conversion for the 20-acre Aryan Nation compound in northern Idaho than to become the site of an education center for human rights. When Victoria Keenan and her son were terrorized by Aryan Nation "security" guards in 1998, they sued the neo-Nazi organization and won a $6.3 million judgment against the white supremacist group and its founder, Richard Butler, throwing them into bankruptcy. Prodigy founder Greg Carr offered to take the property off the Keenans' hands providing them with the funds they needed and establishing a living monument for everything the hate group opposed. Poetic justice, indeed.
Irrationality: We may never know what causes some people to fear others so much that their irrational fears turn into even more irrational hatreds -- hatreds which are manifested in unbelievable violence against those whose skin is the "wrong" color, or whose faith follows the "wrong" holy book or whose beliefs are also "wrong."
Last Sunday's Viewpoint noted that the concept of "race" is not grounded in our chromosomes but rather in our attitudes. But the facts have never gotten in the way of those who cling to their artificial constructs like fungus on rotting wood.
Thus there are those like Butler and his followers who not only believe in the Hitlerite tripe of master races and so-called Aryan purity, they explain away their violence against people and property by their delusions of superiority.
While many racists, anti-semites, homophobes, anti-Catholics and other such hatemongers are less educated than the average American -- though this hardly excuses them -- there are plenty of pseudo-intellectuals who find spurious science and history to justify their evil views.
Big truth: Hitler was the master of the "big lie." His latter-day followers, now armed by the Internet, can only be countered with "big truths." It is truth, after all, that is supposed to set one free.
Carr, an Idaho native who has financed the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University, told The New York Times that he and others first thought of having a giant fire at the compound to burn down the so-called church and other buildings including a shed on the grounds that still contains Nazi flags, copies of & quot;Mein Kampf, & quot; weapons and racist posters and flyers.
But he said that would be too easy. & quot;We're not just going to tear the place down and pretend it never happened." Instead, Carr said, & quot;We're going to leave it there and acknowledge that this kind of hatred still exists and that we'll battle against it."
The good people of Idaho did not need their image tarnished by the likes of the Aryan Nation. Working with Carr, they can reclaim a beauty of spirit to match the beauty of their state.