Truth Bombs

The Denver unit of the National Socialist Movement – also known as America's Nazi Party when its members are being honest with themselves – has recently volunteered to maintain a mile of Colorado State Highway 85 as part of the Department of Transportation's Adopt-a-Highway program. They even have their own sign.

The stretch of highway in question runs through Brighton, a suburb northeast of Denver, and now, on Saturdays at 2 p.m., observant drivers can spot the Nazis toiling there, picking up trash for the advancement of the white race. Maybe, if you're lucky (and not Jewish) a real-life Nazi will wave at your children!

"We're here. We're active. We're doing good things," said Colorado-based spokes-Nazi Neal Land in an interview with Denver's CBS Channel 4. The foray into highway adoption is part of a promotional campaign, intended to gain media coverage and recruit new members into the party. When pressed by reporter Howard Nathan, Land admitted he was "not much for the Jewish religion" and that America's Nazi Party indeed objects to many races and belief systems. Despite his racist outlook and the violent history associated with it, Land has promised that party members will behave civilly and not "initiate any violence." Land then added the somewhat menacing coda, "I can't promise what somebody driving down the highway might do."

Officials at the Colorado Department of Transportation, though troubled by the group's message and historical stigma, accepted the application from America's Nazi Party with hesitation. A legal precedent was established for controversies such as these in 2001, when a Supreme Court ruling dictated that the Ku Klux Klan could officially adopt a section of state highway and mark it with a recruitment sign.

The first amendment extends free speech rights to every American citizen, even those who participate in hate groups. It strikes me as particularly hypocritical however, for an American Nazi, who would deny free speech and voting rights (not to mention the right to not be wrongfully imprisoned and murdered by the millions) to people from different ethnicities or religions, to fight for his free speech. People who abuse the liberty granted by the First Amendment to rally the ignorant in a collective hatred display a fundamental misunderstanding of what the right to free speech actually means, or if not misunderstanding then outright disrespect. Free speech must be accessible and possible for everyone, America's Nazi Party and the Anti-Defamation League alike, it becomes something different and compromised otherwise. Enjoying the right of free speech is contingent on the concession that people with whom you disagree deserve the same rights regardless.

Those of us who would condemn America's Nazi party as well as their bankrupt ideology are not powerless in this exchange, however. We have free speech of our own to decry the presence of hate mongers on our state highways. We can spread awareness and criticize the promotion of despicable hate groups. We could project "Inglorious Basterds" on the walls of nearby Elmwood Baptist Church, where the Nazis would be sure to see it. Whatever you do, and whatever your position on the matter may be, I implore all of our readers, that should they happen upon this mile of Highway 85 that begins just south of Bromley Lane, they would find it in their hearts to litter profusely.