Here is a multiple spoiler alert:
#1 I am going to give away most of the plot of the documentary by this title, and
#2 This post is about a topic that is guaranteed to upset people who are easily offended.
I am not writing it to be deliberately provocative, but if you are the type who gets riled up at the mere mention of sensitive topics, I suggest you skip this post.
I have watched the documentary called Welcome to Leith multiple times. The issues it raises about civil liberties are really profound, and if you can get past your own biases enough to examine them objectively, they are quite interesting to discuss.
In VERY brief (and I may do somewhat of a hack job of explaining this in the interest of brevity, so please forgive me if I don’t get things exactly right and just go with the spirit of what I am saying…)- a well known white supremacist got a very interesting idea. He would buy land and property in a small town- so small in fact that it had about 25 residents. So small, in fact, that if he could move in enough of his friends they could control a majority interest in the local government and thus democratically vote in their own officials and vote in their own policies. So small that he could create his own white supremacist enclave out in the middle of nowhere (actually in Leith, North Dakota), and they could live how they wanted, not bothering anyone.
The problem was, it bothered the residents of Leith.
And the problem was, on a visceral level, white supremacists bother a lot of people.
So perhaps if it had been a group of vegan pacifists who had wanted to go and vote in peace, love, and happiness, nobody would have cared too much. Or had it been a group of people who wanted to form an artist colony where folks could paint and sculpt and make collages, that would have been okay. But the white supremacist thing got people’s hearts racing- and not in a good way.
All of the land purchases were done legally and above board. No attempt was made to hide anything or be secretive. And to their credit, the original plan was to make use of perfectly legal means to control a government.
But then things went kind of haywire. People started protesting the supremacists being in Leith. The citizens demanded the racists leave. But it isn’t so straightforward to demand that a law-abiding homeowner leave somewhere just because you don’t agree with their political views. The original racist brought in other groups to speak on his behalf. protesters came from far and wide to “support” the original citizens of Leith. Threats were exchanged and petty harassment against the racists escalated to outright acts of aggression and vandalism. Police seemed a little lackadaisical about protecting the racists against the harassment, and eventually the racists took things a bit too far.
They grabbed some guns and went on patrol. Had they merely stayed on their own property, this may have been okay. But they did a walkabout around the town. And they seemed to be looking for trouble. They made several provocative comments, almost wishing someone would provoke a confrontation with them so they could escalate into violence.
The two men who did this were arrested and charged with various crimes, among them some sort of terroristic threats. Though a series of legal ball-dropping and either correct or incorrect (depending on your position) application of the laws in question, the charges were dropped and the men went free. There was a cascade of fallout, which it is worth watching the documentary to see (I highly recommend watching it for many reasons).
But the overall question which I find fascinating is: should people with controversial (some would say abhorrent) views, be allowed to democratically control a government? And I guess the corollary to that is, should unpopular views be allowed to be silenced just because they are unpopular?
If you can suspend your dislike of white supremacists for a moment, let’s do a quick swap. What if a town decided that Catholicism was disgusting and completely contrary to American values? Would it be okay to run Catholics out of town? To deny them the right to buy property in a given place? To silence their voices in a democracy? Because we don’t agree with them in one area does that negate their right to have opinions or their ability to be seen as intrinsically valuable in other areas?
Could we envision for one moment a white supremacist who is also a philanthropist? What percentage of a person has to be “bad” before we discount the whole person? Can you have a Nazi humanitarian? A wife-beater who works for doctors without borders? A volunteer at the humane society who is also a sexual sadist?
Eventually the residents of Leith drove out the white supremacists, but it raises interesting questions about what we say we believe (free speech and free expression) versus what we really believe (you are free to say and express what you believe as long as I don’t find it too distasteful).
Personally I find it useful to do a gut check every once in a while to see if I am truly living in concert with my own principles. Do you?
oakparkhatesveggies 
Nov 28, 2016 @ 11:25:38
Pure democracy is nothing more than mob rule. Plato discussed that thousands of years ago. And the person with the most money to fund the most votes wins.
It’s funny, but in the 50’s and the communist scare was going on, the ACLU and the ADL was all over protecting the unpopular view point. Now days, they’re nowhere to be seen in cases like this. Because it conflicts with their own interests. And yes, calling someone a white supremacist if they’re a white nationalist IS defamation. I don’t know in this case, I haven’t researched the guy’s stance, but it does make a difference. White nationalists tend to be ‘alt-lite’ or want to have the same protections for their own culture and values as every other culture has. They don’t think of themselves as superior, only as equals. Which is not the case if you read the media – think of white privilege. I know that’s a controversial viewpoint but we *are* discussing a controversial topic. White supremacists….well we know what they are.
All I have to say is, if you don’t want to live in a place like that, don’t move there. Any laws they pass that conflict with state or federal rules will be turned over anyway, so there is only a temporary problem. The guy’s mistake was in buying land in an already established town. Should have bought land and created a town.
Nov 28, 2016 @ 16:48:15
Wow! This is the most intelligent piece I have read all year! It has seemed as though I was the only one who could see the irony! For me the bottom line is the Golden Rule. Free to be you and me but not free to oppress each other. What appalls me the most about this story is that those who wrap themselves in a flag of equality, social justice and compassion never seem to be held accountable for their own actions. Are they exempted from their own demands of others? Until there are more articles like this in circulation it would seem the answer is yes.
Nov 29, 2016 @ 08:48:34
TFHS- Good point(s)! I actually think I may devote the next post to one of the issues you raised- hope you won’t mind…
Nov 29, 2016 @ 08:49:20
Greg T- Thanks so much, and welcome to the blog 🙂
Dec 04, 2016 @ 06:07:03
I saw Welcome to Leith seems like couple of years ago on the World Channel. The issues surrounding the events aren’t at all crystal clear to me. Like any good card-carrying ACLU member, my commitment to freedom of conscience and freedom of expression is absolute. Even white supremacist scum have the right to an opinion and even a soap box. It becomes challenging for me when such bizarrely imprinted biots find themselves able to win elections; even local elections in tiny communities. If I were unfortunate enough to be a resident of such a community, it would be a choice between leaving, or becoming part of a decidedly disloyal opposition. As in any personal commitment to Rule of Law goes out the window, at least at the local level. The recalcitrant in me would want to stand my ground and duke it out with those who unfortunately have become the authorities, but I know don’t have the kind of deep pockets it takes to fight even the smallest city hall, so I’d probably have to just vote with my feet for Somewhere Other Than Leith.
My own political views are outside the narrow center-right range acceptable to the two party system and the commercial media. In my case, I’m critical of that cabal from the left, not the right, but it does beg certain questions. I’ll confess that I sometimes (particularly when election season is in the air) envy the citizens of parliamentary democracies, especially of the “proportional representation” type (as opposed to the “first past the post” type like the UK and Canada) because the possibility of coalition government exists, because the possibility exists that more than two parties can have at least some amount of clout. And of course I desire this model of democracy mainly because the lesser-evil party in my case is so thoroughly dominated by its conservative faction (or its moderate faction, in media-speak) and so easily able to squelch its progressive faction. So yeah, I like the idea of a few socialists holding a few seats in a national parliament. But of course the same political institutions that allow that can just as easily allow a few fascists to win seats. So we have seen dark and scary things happen in the Europe that progressives like myself once envied; the Berlusconi machine in Italy, the fascist Golden Dawn party controlling the Greek government a couple of years ago, conservative governments of a decidedly nationalist stripe in Austria and Finland and the rumors abounding about whether Marine LePen may be the next president of France.
Here at home we have something called “normalization” going on. Those of us who have been paying attention have seen it for several years, although our term for it has been “entryism,” by which we mean people mixing ethno-nationalist views with otherwise left-of-center views on things like economics, and entering left movement spaces and trying to identify people whose attraction to those spaces is solely based on economic issues, and trying to recruit people into what are ultimately nationalist movements. It took a Donald Trump electoral victory to clue the mainstream media in to this trend. In the last few weeks, at least in online communities, the trickle of people sliding nationalist ideas under the rug has become an open floodgate of people daring people to ban them from the online communities after they enter in large numbers (whether large numbers of actual people is anyone’s guess, of course).
Some miscellaneous notes on this post:
I assume numerous examples have existed throughout history. Even today one of the anchors of the philanthropic community is this thing called the Ford Foundation.
A meaningless question, I think. If I discount (which I understand to mean “consider non-credible”) a person, it’s based on credibility issues, not “badness” issues. Or so I’d like to think.
I would think that would be a contradiction in terms. Humanitarianism is about human race as in-group. Nazism is about people they consider non-Nordic being the out-group.
If MSF gits him overseas and well away from his wife maybe that would be a win. Their patients are the most vulnerable people on earth, though. Honestly, domestic violence should land someone in jail, but unfortunately too often Stockholm Syndrome kicks in.
Yes.
From the comment by thetinfoilhatsociety:
Give the ACLU a little credit. They went to bat for the Nazis in the Skokie case back in ’77. That’s not as long ago as the HUAC witch hunts, but admittedly not very recent. From what I can see their recent work is largely on “national security” issues like “Patriot” Act and No-Fly Lists, which makes sense to me as the highest priority threat to civil liberties. It would be a crying shame though if freedom of expression got lost in the sauce because we have bigger worries.
Dec 04, 2016 @ 11:19:52
n8chz- wonderful to read your thought-provoking comments, as always
Dec 05, 2016 @ 03:53:22
https://mobile.twitter.com/FrankPasquale/status/805586663183417345