Posted on 01/28/2005 8:33:17 AM PST by TBarnett34
SALEM, Ore. (AP) Two green Adopt-A-Highway signs reading "American Nazi Party" have popped up on a rural road a few miles from downtown, and it's got people upset with the county for agreeing to put up the signs and worried about their neighborhood.
"I know we live in a free world. But that's not part of freedom, anything to do with the Nazis," said Barbara Hamblin, a 64-year-old who lives in a mobile home park just down the road from one of the signs.
"They had to have been off their rocker," she said.
The two signs were erected by Marion County road crews earlier this week, costing taxpayers $250 each.
County officials said they know people are upset. But free-speech guarantees in the Constitution prevented them from turning down the person who signed the American Nazi Party up with the local Adopt-A-Highway program.
"Our hands are pretty much tied from a legal standpoint," said Marion County Commissioner Patti Milne. "This has been very difficult, but the bottom line is they are entitled to participate."
"We can't pick and choose what parts of the constitution to follow," said Milne, a former Republican state legislator.
Marion County put up the signs after a person named C. Marchand applied for a permit under which the "American Nazi Party" agreed to help clean up the road.
A person answering the phone at the number given on the permit application said "maybe" when asked if he was Marchand.
He declined to make any further comment, referring inquiries to a Jim Ramm, who has previously been identified in news reports as leader of the Tualatin Valley Skins, a white-supremacist group that has been active in the Willamette Valley.
No listing could be found for Ramm.
The Web site for the American Nazi Party lists as its chairman Rocky J. Suhayda.
Responding to an e-mail, Suhayda said his group has nothing to do with the two signs in Salem, writing, in part ... "we would never pick up garbage along a highway in this toilet-bowl of a country..."
County officials said they got about a dozen complaints about the signs as of mid-Thursday afternoon, and more were coming in after their existence was broadcast on TV news.
The applicants for the sign may have been borrowing an idea from the Ku Klux Klan.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that free-speech rights prevent Missouri from barring the Klan from participating in that state's Adopt-A-Highway program.
Out on Salem's Sunnyview Road, someone expressed their views about the two signs by bending one of them in half.
The sign is near a house where Patti Buetler lives, practically in her yard.
Buetler said she had called county officials about the sign.
"I don't want to get myself involved in this. All I want is for it to not be in my yard," she said.
Buetler may get her wish.
County officials say the vandalized sign will be replaced, but only if the permit applicant pays for a new one.
"If they want to replace it, the Nazi Party will have to pay," said Dan Estes, spokesman for the county commissioners.
He said that is standard policy the county erects the signs at its expense the first time but charges organizations to replace them if they are vandalized or stolen.
_
Salem staffer Charles E. Beggs and Portland staffer Typh Tucker contributed to this report.
hehe! I found that here:
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jimthing/allen.htm
Residents are angered that they will only pick up white trash.
Here's a chance for the taxpayers to really waste some money. Sneak out on a dark and stormy night and rip the signs down. The NAZIs have to pay for the replacements.
"We don't want to play your reindeer games. If you can't the see the difference between the Confederacy and the Nazis you don't have a clue."
No problem. You've already shown your capacity for comprehension of what I said.
Hint.....the words do not equate the Nazis's and Confederacy as being the same.
To be sure the Confederacy and Nazi's are quite different.
My point was "some" people express the same reaction, right or wrong.
If some can tolerate the Nazi's then By GOD let the flag fly. The Jews have built a whole museum in DC with all manner of Nazi symbols. Why? So people don't forget.
Conversely there seems to be no one who will stand for the flag, which yes, does connotate a poor treatment of people at some point in history, but it also connotates the richness of the South, independence, support for states rights, the southern belle, the southern gentleman etc.
Seems just about everybody has something these days that offends them. Get over it!
I was particularly noting that what the flags might represent, today, in the 21st century, are almost diametrically opposed. Again, it depends on whether all those conservatives, frankly many of them, who fly the stars and bars, or who sport decals of same, intend to remember that Confederacy as principally the defender of the institution of slavery, or rather instead a bastion of agrarian liberty, confederation, which ought to have quickly abandoned slavery rather than live upon it. There is nothing noble, conversely, that one can claim of Nazism which is not utterly overwhelmed by that super-state's complete destruction of both the German family unit and the German sense of national unity in the Nazi's gangster barbarism, the insane rage of camp guards chosen only for their degree of sadism and camps turned into murder factories for not even just thousands, but millions upon millions of innocent non-combatants. Had the south engaged in such behavior, there would be no Confederate flag stickers on the speaker cases of touring country bands, today, for ex.
Your earlier post was not clear. That is why several people took umbrage with it. I agree we can become too sensitive and I agree with the earlier post that perhaps prisoners could clean the roads. Nevertheless, surely you don't believe that wherever government makes accomodations for speech they must allow any message that somebody wants?
"Kill All Abortionists, When You Get the Chance!"
"Kill All Jews, When You Get the Chance!"
Would you allow that one?
Excellent points. Good to see some wiseass rained on their liberal parade even if it was a faux Nazi.
Denny Crane: "I want two things. First God and then Fox News."
I don't want to shake hands with and smile at these guys either!
I hope that this post doesn't get me slammed for abuse or naughty language, but here it goes...
If I go to the road that the NAZIs are cleaning and take a dump, will they have to clean it up?
Mark
"I hate Illinois NAZIs" - The Blues Brothers
Are you stating now that you believe that a young member of the British Royal family is a current member of the Nazi party, based upon a costume he chose to wear to a costume party with school friends?
If you are giving away money, "yes." If you are a collection agency then, "no." Until then "maybe" is the best response...
It's not a satire, the ANP would never pick up negro garbage from the side of a road.
Yes they did, and that's why Suhayda was upset. These fools decide they want to do some humanitarian garbage instead of fighting for the cause, and so they start picking up garbage on the side of the road. These aren't real Comrades, just some wannabes in costumes.
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