At its July 12 meeting, the Scotland City Council approved closing Main Street for a cornhole tournament on August 13 and the Scottie Stampede parade and street dance on August 14.
In a related decision, the Scotland City Council approved closing Main Street on September 18 for a stampede of a-holes:
Celebration – David Finnell spoke on behalf of his fraternity the Proud Boys requesting permission for a street dance. It would be held September 18, 2021 from noon to midnight with approximately eight bands playing throughout that time. The fraternity must submit two certified officers to the finance officer to be presented for approval. All vendors must apply at the finance office with their sales tax licenses to be verified through the department of revenue. They also must bring in adequate number of port-a-pots. A motion was made by Bietz, second by Thum to allow Main Street to be closed from Second Street to Curry Street on September 18 for a Street Dance contingent that all rules and regulations are followed. All voted in favor. Motion carried [Scotland City Council, minutes, 2021.07.12].
Pressed on why the Council would allow a domestic terrorist organization that tried to violently overthrow our government last January to hold an event on Scotland’s Main Street, city attorney Kent Lehr resorts to the sort of limp moral agnosticism that right-wing radicals exploit to promote their agenda of hate:
Scotland’s city attorney Kent Lehr said while the Proud Boys have gained some negative national attention, there have not been any problems locally. It’s his understanding that several local or area residents are associated with the Proud Boys, Lehr said.
“I’m not saying the city is condoning or agreeing with what the group says…,” Lehr said. The council had to evaluate the street dance request from the Proud Boys as it evaluates any other request, he said.
“It has to consider the benefit to the community, any potential disruption (to closing street and caused by the event), the benefit to businesses on Main Street….,” Lehr said.
Lehr and city finance officer Tanya Bult said the Proud Boys representative indicated the group wanted to raise money for the community with its Sept. 18 event. Finnell confirmed in a Facebook message the Proud Boys planned to raise money for local non-profits before deciding on Monday to withdraw from the event [Rae Yost, “Proud Boys Representative Says Group Plans to Withdraw Sponsorship of September Event in Scotland, South Dakota,” KELO-TV, 2021.07.19].
Come on, Scotland, you’re better than that. The proper response to Nazi pigs is not, Oh, they’re going to raise money for local charities, and they have lots of local members, so their request is just like anyone else’s. The proper response is, Nazi pigs? No way.
The proper response is also publicity, which makes the cowardly Proud Boys shrink away as Finnell has done… but watch out: according to Yost, Finnell says his hate group “would no longer sponsor the event but would try to find a local sponsor.”
Hey, they can now approve a Black Lives Matter dance. I’m sure they would.
Is this the 1st PROUD BOYS anti-patriot radical paramilitary steroid red bull pseudo paramilitary “militia” white-boy red-neck fight club hate group to organize and spew idiocy in South Dakota?
Is law enforcement focusing on them or had Kristi’s dog-whistling legitimized them? How many members ARE law enforcement staff?
In West River we have had to live with shoot outs between such criminal hate groups as Hells Angels, and Banditos who have a national “office” on their land on Rapid Creek out in the valley.
Sounds like the same sort of reasoning used by the Western Attorneys General Association when they allowed Jason Revensborg to be elected their vice chair.
“Pressed on why the Council would allow a domestic terrorist organization that tried to violently overthrow our government last January”
This is a baseless conspiracy theory.
Show the pictures of the proud boys directing people into the building.
Because there are actually pictures of that type of thing:
https://plainstribune.com/podcast/?service=podcast.PodCastDetail&streamId=878d9871c63e6dd400f42bf297a26a86
Hijack Johnny and his free advertising at DFP. Cory isn’t the entity that labeled Hijack Johnny’s buds as domestic terrorists.
Interesting. Proud Boys is a hate group, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center. Yet, SPLC lists only Rapid City’s PmZ Inc., a nutjob Nazi hierarchy without much of a traceable following, as a hate group located in South Dakota. Where are these clowns based, and who sponsors them? South Dakota is the perfect weed patch for imbeciles like Proud Boys, the Klan and other dangerous white supremacist hate groups.
I’m wondering about that, too, 96. I don’t know if there is really an organized chapter of the proud boys in South Dakota. I couldn’t find anything in my pre-breakfast googling connecting David Finnell with the proud boys anywhere other than in this story and the Scotland council minutes. It’s hard to tell if the proud boys here are active collaborators in organizing the next insurrection or if they’re just rednecks keeping the right wing dog whistles they hear in the media just like they thoughtlessly shout “Trump!” just to get a rise out of us decent people.
John, the Proud Boys joined many other right wing extremists on January 6 at the United States Capitol in trying to provoke exactly the Boogaloo they’ve been calling for for years. Don’t gaslight us. Proud boys stormed the capital committed violence broke the law and threatened the constitution and the orderly legal transfer of power. They are exactly what I label them to be above.
Sadly, Scotland isn’t better than that.
The first Capital rioter just got eight months.
Skeert those Proud Chickens away from the public eye ’cause some no doubt are on the wanted list.
Well..I saw a map a while back denoting the states from which the Jan.6 treasonous trespassers and attempted murderers hailed. South Dakota and North Dakota had no one charged with any crime at the Capitol.I was a little surprised by that but then considered that, as a whole, South Dakotans aren’t really avid joiners in adhoc kinds of organizations (other than the NFO, I can’t think of one that’s really caught on).It does kind of stagger one’s imagination to picture what a Proud Boys Street Dance and Festival looks like….Body Slamming to Music??? Hanging Mike Pence lookalikes from street poles???An Elk Man bugling contest???
It is my understanding there were South Dakotans at the Trump Jan 6th Rally. Whether they participated in the insurrection, sedition and destruction of our nation’s capitol is not known at this time.