Freedom Highway

This happened in January, in Missouri.

A neo-Nazi group has joined the state's "Adopt-A-Highway" volunteer litter pickup program, taking advantage of a free speech court fight won four years ago by the Ku Klux Klan. The Springfield unit of the National Socialist Movement has committed to cleaning up trash along a half-mile section of Highway 160 near the Springfield city limits.

Neither lawmakers nor bureaucrats fought to keep the brownshirts from adopting a stretch of highway and putting up their promotional sign. Which is exactly as it should be. People with ugly little minds have as much right to speak them — and to pick up fast-food wrappers — as anybody else.

But the other day, one legislator did manage to get the last laugh. Most excellent pwnage:

Rep. Sara Lampe, D-Springfield, got an amendment added to a transportation bill to rename a portion of West Bypass from Farm Road 142 to West Sunshine [the part serviced by the White Power folks] the "Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway." Heschel marched with Martin Luther King Jr. at the Selma, Ala., Civil Rights march in 1965.

Awesome.

In lieu of sending a Halmark card, I'm dedicating this YouTube video to Lampe. It features the cool illustrations of Anthony DiFatta, set to my favorite song by the North Mississippi Allstars — Freedom Highway.



[miter tip: Popehat]

Comments

[Jeff Wiebe]

That is poetic indeed.

[Edgar]

Awesome Site!

"Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel Memorial Highway."
There are Judges with a sense of humour! :D

Went and used your Site's image to illustrate a piece on the Nanny State - It's copyrighted mentioning you, with your Site's name and Link.

If it's still not Ok by you, tell me, and I'll remove it, but will keep the Link. :)