This story is absolutely amazing.
Tony Zirkle is a candidate for the Republican nomination in Indiana's 2nd Congressional district . Over the weekend, he gave a speech to American National Socialist Workers Party (ANSWP). The occasion? The 119th anniversary of Adolf Hitler's birth. ANSWP, you see, is the American version of the Nazi Party, a fact Zirkle apparently knew well in advance.
During the speech Zirkle stood "at the podium in front of the larger-than-life portrait of Hitler, flanked by an American flag on one side and a Nazi flag on the other. Swastika banners hang on the wall, and other head-table guests are wearing swastika arm bands." You really have to see the picture to get the full impact.
When asked why he would do such a thing, Zirkle had three brilliant responses. First, that he would "speak before any group that invites me," and that "If you want to witness to people, if you want to share your message with people, you have to talk to them. By not taking a risk and going out there and addressing issues that your enemies can paint you as a racist or a bigot, then we're never going to address them." Ah yes, the classic "I don't want people to think I hate the Nazis" defense.
Second, Zirkle claimed he doesn't "know enough about the group" to say whether he agrees with their ideology. For a man who has previously suggested that "the United States should debate segregating by race," that's a bit odd, no?
And third - and this really is the best part - despite not knowing anything about their ideology, he nevertheless thought they would be an ideal group to hear his anti-pornography message. Why? I'll let him once again speak for himself:
An account of the gathering on www.Overthrow.com says "Zirkle spoke on his history as a state's attorney in Indiana, prosecuting Jewish and Zionist criminal gangs involved in trafficking prostitutes and pornography from Russia and the Zionist entity.''
...Zirkle said he feels he was misunderstood. His real mission, he said, is to rid the country of pornography, and that's what he was saying at the ANSWP gathering. So how did his comment about Jews fit in?"Most of the male porn stars were Jewish at the beginning," Zirkle explained.
Now the male porn stars are mostly black, he claimed, and the women who appear in pornographic works tend to be "young, white, Christian women."
If people think he is targeting the Jews, he said, they are misinterpreting his position. He is targeting, Zirkle said, the "porn dragon" that inspires Jews to get involved in pornography.
Jewish men are culpable for running the business end of the pornography business, he said, but young white women are guilty of starring in it.
He spoke at the ANSWP program, Zirkle said, to educate and inform the gathering about Christian virtues. If we don't learn from history, he said, we will repeat the mistakes of the past.
The references to prosecuting Jewish and Zionist gangs, Zirkle said, come from his days as a deputy under former St. Joseph County Prosecutor Chris Toth.
Toth took a pornography case against the Little Denmark adult bookstore to a grand jury in February 2001. The grand jury handed down a 19-count indictment against the owner of Little Denmark, but a jury trial later in the year acquitted him.
Community standards were at issue. Zirkle said he thinks the judge erred when he instructed the jury that if a community tolerated an adult business, that meant the community was accepting of it.
"I don't think it's a settled issue for our community,'' he said.
Curious about how someone could be so clueless, I decided to look up Zirkle's website, and it is really quite amazing. There is a section, for example, all about "The Great Porn Jihad War Tax: Prolific Porn Mule Serial Woman-Womb Slaughterers," whatever that might be. I read it, but I cannot say it made any sense. And I tried to keep going from there, but then I realized I didn't need to procrastinate that badly, so I stopped.
Anyway, hate tip to ThinkProgress for pointing out this bizarre story. I would expect full coverage tonight on Countdown!
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