The Leith Nazis: To Zone Them Out Or Not To Zone Them Out
Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2017 5:18 pmWhile this is an apparently old issue, I somehow missed it. But also, there's a new documentary about it. So fuck it I'm going to make this thread.
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25646954
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Leith
If you haven't checked out the documentary, I recommend it.
For those that didn't know, like me, the town of Leith, North Dakota suffered what was more or less the beginnings of a Nazi invasion when "infamous" (read: annoying) white supremacist Craig Cobb (confirmed to have African blood... Like most people, though this conflicts with a lot of neo-Nazi narratives based on paleonazi Aryan supremacy teachings) bought up a bunch of cheap land in the town in order to set the stage for a large number of others like himself to move to the town.
Essentially, though this was apparently not known at the time, Cobb basically snuck into the town without stating his intentions, and before the town knew what they were dealing with, it was too late. Cobb, by way of technicality, was going to establish a majority in the town, thereby voting out the current incumbent officials, taking over the budget, codes, and the property of the local government. However, the local residents (of which there weren't that many, maybe 15
) didn't take this lying down. They made Cobb's and his lackeys' lives miserable until Cobb and one of his cronies, a former Iraq war veteran, snapped and went on a "patrol" of their property. This involved getting into altercations with some of the locals, yelling and brandishing their guns at them. They were later arrested by the police and charged with terrorizing. The war veteran then flipped on Cobb in exchange for having his indictments dropped.
Not only that, but the local board imposed a zoning law that more or less would guarantee Cobb's eviction: they required that any property in the town had to have working plumbing. Cobb, lacking budget, time, and planning (because "Nazi" is not a job, nor is it a guarantee of intelligence or foresight), lashed out at the town for imposing such a "draconian" measure (it was really only a problem for the newly arrived Nazis, since they hadn't bothered with sewage when building their ramshackle houses but had bothered with... Everything else), which he surmised (somewhat correctly) that they had imposed simply to evict him, screwing his entire plan.
In my opinion, I think the residents of Leith were justified in their possible crimes against the Cobb cabal. Instead of engaging with the town on a legitimate level, Cobb resorted to underhanded trickery and cowardly secrecy in order to insert himself into the town, avoiding suspicion until it benefited him. The town, in turn, responded with the same underhandedness. However, I will not deny that their tactics were indeed underhanded. Not the zoning law. The council was well within their rights to do this. Whether the townspeople (and, really, it could have been anyone, though the townspeople were probably guilty of this maybe) were in the right to harass the Nazis is what is in contention. Of course, then there's the question if they did indeed harass them.
To this day, some of the land Cobb bought remains under the deedship of several Nazis. However, there have been no apparent efforts on their part to try to retake Leith.
But what do you guys think? Did Cobb have a right to establish his little Nazi wonderland under democratic rule? Were his tactics legitimate or should they have been subject to intervention by outside law enforcement? Should the town have the right to expulse them legitimately? Should they have sucked up the Nazi takeover? Or do you feel their efforts were justified?
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-25646954
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welcome_to_Leith
If you haven't checked out the documentary, I recommend it.
For those that didn't know, like me, the town of Leith, North Dakota suffered what was more or less the beginnings of a Nazi invasion when "infamous" (read: annoying) white supremacist Craig Cobb (confirmed to have African blood... Like most people, though this conflicts with a lot of neo-Nazi narratives based on paleonazi Aryan supremacy teachings) bought up a bunch of cheap land in the town in order to set the stage for a large number of others like himself to move to the town.
Essentially, though this was apparently not known at the time, Cobb basically snuck into the town without stating his intentions, and before the town knew what they were dealing with, it was too late. Cobb, by way of technicality, was going to establish a majority in the town, thereby voting out the current incumbent officials, taking over the budget, codes, and the property of the local government. However, the local residents (of which there weren't that many, maybe 15
) didn't take this lying down. They made Cobb's and his lackeys' lives miserable until Cobb and one of his cronies, a former Iraq war veteran, snapped and went on a "patrol" of their property. This involved getting into altercations with some of the locals, yelling and brandishing their guns at them. They were later arrested by the police and charged with terrorizing. The war veteran then flipped on Cobb in exchange for having his indictments dropped.Not only that, but the local board imposed a zoning law that more or less would guarantee Cobb's eviction: they required that any property in the town had to have working plumbing. Cobb, lacking budget, time, and planning (because "Nazi" is not a job, nor is it a guarantee of intelligence or foresight), lashed out at the town for imposing such a "draconian" measure (it was really only a problem for the newly arrived Nazis, since they hadn't bothered with sewage when building their ramshackle houses but had bothered with... Everything else), which he surmised (somewhat correctly) that they had imposed simply to evict him, screwing his entire plan.
In my opinion, I think the residents of Leith were justified in their possible crimes against the Cobb cabal. Instead of engaging with the town on a legitimate level, Cobb resorted to underhanded trickery and cowardly secrecy in order to insert himself into the town, avoiding suspicion until it benefited him. The town, in turn, responded with the same underhandedness. However, I will not deny that their tactics were indeed underhanded. Not the zoning law. The council was well within their rights to do this. Whether the townspeople (and, really, it could have been anyone, though the townspeople were probably guilty of this maybe) were in the right to harass the Nazis is what is in contention. Of course, then there's the question if they did indeed harass them.
To this day, some of the land Cobb bought remains under the deedship of several Nazis. However, there have been no apparent efforts on their part to try to retake Leith.
But what do you guys think? Did Cobb have a right to establish his little Nazi wonderland under democratic rule? Were his tactics legitimate or should they have been subject to intervention by outside law enforcement? Should the town have the right to expulse them legitimately? Should they have sucked up the Nazi takeover? Or do you feel their efforts were justified?
