If Richard Butler and the Aryan Nations are metaphorically vampires of
American society, then the $6.3 million civil judgment rendered against them by a Coeur
d’Alene jury last week was a stake that’ll prove to be deeply wounding but not
fatal.
Butler and his pathetic following of racists may lose their 20-acre
northern Idaho compound in the civil judgment (unless an appeals court reverses the
verdict).
But not even the best efforts of man or law can abolish what breathes life
into Butler and his throwbacks to loathsome Hitlerian codes—hate.
In their simple-minded search for causes of their ne’er-do-well lives
of failure, Butler and his strutting storm trooper imitators blame imagined
demons—blacks and Jews.
Were it not for blacks and Jews, so goes the Aryan Nations maxim, whites
such as Butler and his claque would have more fruitful and unfettered lives.
Oh?
One need only look at Butler’s dismal conscripts who witlessly
profess allegiance to the Nazi swastika with stiff arm salutes to understand the
hopelessness of their potential in a world rapidly leaving them behind to their ignorance.
So long as Butler and his recruits confined their words to pure rubbish,
they enjoyed one of America’s great liberties—protected free speech, even
hateful speech.
But Butler and his Aryan Nations abandoned any pretense of simply being
oddball renegades with reprehensible rhetoric when they crossed the line into violence.
Exhibit A: Two of Butler’s security guards are in prison for
assaulting the mother and son who sued and won the civil judgment against Butler and his
colleagues.
Exhibit B: A third goon is on the lam.
This single case has done wonders to correct Idaho’s image.
Widespread media coverage pounded home the fact that Butler and the Aryan Nations are a
few dozen freaks, not symbolic of the state.
Unchastened and unabashed, however, Butler vows to forge on, even claiming
he’ll find another plot in Idaho whence he can continue spewing hatred to a dwindling
audience.
But Butler faces this new reality: Not only has he and his clan been
totally ostracized by every thinking Idahoan and invited to go elsewhere, but they’ve
now been fully discredited in a court of law as a spawning ground of violence and thugs.
Those with a bank account and an ounce of common sense dare not associate
with Butler for fear of becoming co-defendants in a lawsuit and stripped of their assets
to pay for the unpredictable behavior of Butler or his henchmen who share a fixation for
Adolph Hitler’s ways.
