----- Original Message -----
From: "phillip holmes" <insuranceman@xxxxxxxxxx>
So, who is supposed to be the final arbiter of taste and morality on
this? A librarian? Congress (yeah, sure, they're always right, aren't
they!)? I don't think there's anything wrong with lowly ordinary people
having this kind of thing. If they destroy it, then it is lost
forever. If they keep it, (whether they are a bunch of rednecks, or a
museum, or a civil rights organization) the evidence of brutality and
crime is preserved. Let's suppose some racist has it and he commits a
hate crime. Did he do the crime because he had the postcard? No, he
did the crime because he was a racist and the postcard is entered into
evidence (just like child pornography is used as a smoking gun against a
child molester). I have, in my rather large collection of records,
things like Hitler speeches, Roosevelt chats, WWII audio, etc... That
doesn't make me a NAZI, a "New Dealer" or a WWII historian. If I
decided to sell them, it's nobody's business if I make a profit. If
this postcard is one of a kind (or is suspected to be one of a kind),
then the collector/dealer _should_ make a copy available to the
authorities. But they should be able to do what they wish with the
original. As an aside, I doubt that ONE postcard was printed. They
were printed by the hundreds and passed around by racists.
We should look at how this played out in Germany. Any kind of NAZI
paraphernalia was made illegal. Every last trace of it was removed from
public view except for a few exceptions. I don't think it's at all
surprising that Germany has a group of holocaust deniers and neo-NAZIs.
I know this is comparing apples and oranges, but common people should
see what happens when hate goes unchecked: wars, genocide, lynching,
etc... Taking this ugly side of our history in America, and locking it
up, makes repeat offenses more likely.
Woops...!
IMHO, this "Mea Culpa" makes you...at least in MY eyes...guilty of a
MUCH worse offense...! Unfortunately, we have arrived, in the XXI
Jahrhundert, at a new and extremely offensive (well, to me and Ecru,
at any rate...!) social point!
What you are saying (cut to the chase here)...is that your sale of
ANYTHING...to the highest bidder...is somehow entirely justifiable!
What you are trying to do is to justify your personal improvement
in standing in the Homo Sapiens dominance hierarchy (or a subset
thereof...!)...regardless of the immediate and/or eventual result
of that sale...!
Don't think so...?!
Steven C. Barr