A march on Labor Day by a small group of white supremacists hoping to increase their membership in Utah met with 10 times as many outraged opponents who were disgusted and angered by their racist oratory.
Fortunately, the police were able to keep a lid on the confrontation. The neo-Nazi United White Workers had received a city permit to make their four-block goose-step march from the Capitol to the Federal Building, and so they were acting within their legitimate rights.But let there be no mistake about the despicable nature of their beliefs. The skinheads are most well-known for their loud and often violent opposition to non-white races, Jews and other minorities.
There is no place in the Salt Lake community - or anywhere else in Utah - for this type of philosophy, harking back to Hitler's heinous dictatorial rule in Germany and the unimaginable atrocities of the holocaust.
The fact that there are even a small number of people who espouse such feelings of inhumanity is sad, but they should not delude themselves into thinking that their philosophy is welcome in Utah or that it has any political or religious support.
Despite vague hints from the neo-Nazi group that it has received a welcome in Utah and had a a membership of 50,000 - a ridiculous figure that the demonstrators could not document or substantiate - the group has no real foothold in the community. If they are doing so well, why could they only get 30 people, many from out of state, at their pathetic "demonstration?"
Clearly, the arithmetic of the white supremacy followers is as shaky as the rest of their propaganda. Neither are to be believed.
This movement, if that's not too large a word for such a fringe group, is made up of unhappy haters who have an emptiness in their own lives.
If Utahns continue their steadfast refusal to give such negative beliefs and hatreds any hospitable soil in which to grow, the neo-Nazis or skinheads or white supremacists or whatever, will simply wither away because they cannot find any place to put down roots.