KKK must pay millions for beating

Ha ha!

It really hasn't been a good month for the right wing, has it?

A jury in Meade County, Kentucky, has ordered a Ku Klux Klan group to pay $2,500,000 because of its role in a racially motivated beating of a Latino teenager at a county fair. The KKK group, the Imperial Klans of America, is one of the nation's largest. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the victim by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

A few clowns on the Internet have long questioned the practice of holding hate groups financially liable for violence they cause. They cry that it's all a big conspiracy against them. But that's too damn bad. If a group organizes violence like this, the group deserves to be held responsible.

This story underscores once again what a bunch of sorryasses the KKK are. They get all the special rights they ask for from Kentucky's university system (which gives them privileges that others are denied), and they forever delete others' Usenet posts - but when you get down to it, they're among the country's biggest clods.

Their phony populism is a lie that everyone sees through. The KKK is a bunch of trust fund babies who think they have a sense of entitlement and shouldn't have to work like everyone else. Recently I saw an article about one of their leaders refusing to work and trying to collect disability benefits all because he won't control his anger.

If I knew you could get disability for getting angry, what the hell am I working for? These days, if you have a real disabling condition, it often takes years just to collect even a penny in benefits. And if you do collect, you're hamstrung by red tape and often forced to visit doctors of the government's choosing (rather than your own doctors) for years afterward.

But if you're a well-off Klansman who gets angry and doesn't want to work, you've got it made! This flagrant abuse of the country's disability system costs folks who dearly need benefits. And it costs taxpayers in general.

Our efforts to expose right-wing hate groups aren't done yet though. Since 2000 - largely under the Bush regime - the number of hate groups in the U.S. has increased nearly 50%.

(Source: http://www.splcenter.org/news/item.jsp?aid=345&splcnewsletter=newsgen-111408)