Monday, June 20, 2005

O-KKKay...

Maybe it's just me, but I have a sneaking suspicion that when this is how your defense wraps up, your chances may not be all that good...

The defense rested its case today in the trial of Edgar Ray Killen, a former Ku Klux Klansman who is being tried for his role in the 1964 killings of three civil rights workers in Mississippi.

The final witness for the defense was a former mayor of the rural town of Philadelphia, Harlan Majure, who testified before a packed courtroom that the white-supremacist group was a "peaceful organization," according to The Associated Press. Mr. Majure said that Mr. Killen was a good man and that he "did a lot of good up here," The A.P. reported.

Hey, a lot of Islamic terrorist organizations do charitable good works too! Maybe we should cut them a break!

And no, I don't want to hear about "Ku Klux Kleagle Byrd" - yes, I think it's appalling that he was ever in the Klan, but he's repudiated it and apologized again and again, and I do believe that he genuinely regrets it. He did not downplay the KKK's evil or claim it was a peaceful charity organization.

Sadly, even if Killin'- er, Killen, is convicted and imprisoned, well, so what? He's 80 years old now. He's lived a full life already, and had 41 years that his victims never will. If there's a Hell, he'll burn in it just as surely regardless of whether he is convicted in the courts of man.

Yes, I am assuming his guilt. When you have three people killed by Klansmen, I think it's pretty safe to assume that an admitted Klan poobah damn well had something to do with it, even if he wasn't there personally. I hope he does burn in Hell, and I hope I don't have to sit next to him.

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