Although many people often wonder why we haven't made the KKK illegal yet - and wonder so, with good reason might I add - I am against the criminalization of KKK membership. And that sound strange, one must admit. Why would one be against the criminalization of the KKK, a supposed domestic terrorist group (in act, not in name yet) which has been found guilty of lynching black people for naught more than the colour of their skin? One would immediately think to the first argument that can be made (and is commonly made for similar things) and this is a fickle argument but one that I would not forget. But as with all things, the right to free speech is a right subject to law, and therefore like all things, can be changed and retracted at will of the government. A similar argument is perhaps the argument of 'this and that is safeguarded in the constitution!' and although this is true and does give some credibility, it doesn't mitigate for the fact that the constitution (and rights) can be changed at will (and in recent history, similarly, has been changed often in Europe.)

So then, you ask, why would you willingly defend a group that is guilty of hatecrimes?

Well, first of all, I believe in free speech. This right to free speech should go to everyone - the far left, the far right, everyone. I am willing to listen to but the radical anarcho-communists as to the nazi's. I am willing to listen to propositions of why I should accept genocide as opposed to opposing it, or propositions about destroying governments and returning to a tribal lifestyle of communities. I believe everyone should have access to a platform. I also believe I should have access to a platform to critique those ideas (hence, you'll often find me calling people idiots) as this is how debate works and should work. It is important to me because I believe the basis of progress and understanding is dialogue and communication, as well as participation. Non-participation, if voluntary, is not a problem per definition, but will quickly become a problem to the integration and neutralization of particularly rebellious groups if it is enforced by criminalizing them. Imagine your classroom, but your teacher only gives turns to your classmates to speak, leaving you out of the equation. This limits participation and diminishes your motivation to take part in this mini-society. This would work similarly for the KKK - take away their platform to speak, and they will seek other methods to take action. Dislike them and their ideas as much as you want, they have a right to voice them [i]peacefully and without threat of violence.[/i]

Secondly, I believe in the right for groups to meet up and discuss ideas and plans. The reason I believe in this is simple; first of all, regular meetings are required to run organizations and without them the group would fall apart (which, if you support dismantling the KKK, would be a benefit). Second of all - dismantling this right would dismantle it for everyone. We enjoy equality (formal equality) one supposes, so if we remove the right to congregation/freedom of assembly, this would be removed for all groups.

Muslims are no longer allowed to come together.
Christians are no longer allowed to come together.
Jews, Buddhists, Hindus.. 
Your local sports organization would no longer be allowed to come together to organize the group.
Trade unions would no longer be allowed to congregate and oppose their opposition.
You would no longer be allowed to take part in associations and organizations. 
That would include the opposition of the KKK, like protest groups and such.

Therefore removing the right to congregate would be an evil thing that removes power from the people. Perhaps it is a suitable way to silence people. Perhaps. It will not work. I will explain why in my next reason for disliking the proposed criminalization of the KKK.

Thirdly... One must suppose that the KKK organization has tight control on it's members. After all, it's an organization for which you have to sign up. In fact, as far as I am aware, it is possible to sign up online (I have never tried to sign up for the KKK, so feel free to correct me on this.) or otherwise do so officially through paperwork. Therefore, it is possible for government instances to keep tabs if they suspect illicit activities taking place (which for the KKK would be hard [i]not[/i] to have). One most also suppose that this is in fact already taking place. Given the NSA has a rather annoying method in place to assure intercepting information that could be potentially used for tracking terrorists and radicals, it would be really hard to argue that the government does not already keep tabs on KKK members. It would be quite easy for the government to merely keep an eye on KKK members and take extra precautions when it comes to hiring these individuals, which is partially why there is a scare for KKK members. I ask myself why this does not occur in the US already, but that is not a matter I can discuss without reading into that more deeply (and, waiting a few years, as this kind of thing is classified). 

By criminalizing membership of the KKK, in turn, you nullify these records. People would no longer associate with the label of the KKK. They would no longer officially be members. It can no longer be used to keep tabs on people, as there is no reason to assume that they might be radicals. They have ceased associating with the (now illegal) KKK after all. Legally you'd need to find new grounds to keep tabs on these people. Especially if they own a brain and are aware of how to commit to domestic terrorism (aka, do not use cell phones or internet in general to transfer information, blabla). I won't assume that you are all familiar with the way criminal justice works when it comes to evidence and/or the legal ability to tap phones or acquire information, but I can assure that it would be more difficult to obtain permission legally to do so if there were no legal records of their membership, which are easier to acquire (if not already acquired at this point in time) if the membership itself is not illegal.

Shortly: it is easier to hunt these people if you have a track record of their membership. Remove that, remove the ability to efficiently keep eyes on them.

Fourthly, there is evidence from previous encounters with [i]left wing[/i] radicals, namely the Rote Armee Fraktion in Germany during the 70's. The organization started as a student movement in I believe the 60's but grew into a radical organization during the 70's that was responsible for murders, robberies and bombings. During the early years of the student movement as well as the early years of the RAF creation, the movement faced heavy repression (repression = the oppression or persecution of an individual or group for political reasons) and was also criminalized (at least in part). As a result of this, members of the groups had to go 'underground' and as a result of that became detached from society.

I am not one to advocate that the society must always take responsibility for the wrongdoings of individuals, but one cannot help but understand that the society can definitely have a large impact on a persons motives. We often underestimate the effects of society and our ties to society, but anyone with criminological understanding of the common theories will know that social ties to society are in fact a large pillar to preventing crime and terrorism. This is also the case for the KKK. 

Due to their detachment from society, members became paranoid and quickly radicalized under the belief that 'peaceful protest' would no longer work (they were being represssed! How could it work?!) and thus they had to take violent action to ensure that their political agenda was heard and established (similar to the 'we must enforce the class struggle, it will not occur naturally on it's own as Marx imposed'). 

During this process, the 'moderate' students stopped association with the repressed RAF as the benefits no longer outweighed the negative of being repressed. The hardcore radicals continued doing what they did and went underground - and this echo chamber furthered the process of radicalization. So, the 'positive' repression that prevented these troublemakers from causing a ruckus in public in fact turned 'negative' as it silenced them for a short period, but ended up creating a domestic terrorist group due to the fact that the members of the group had to go underground.

Source: [url=http://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1024086711511]Like Zealots and Romans: Terrorism and Empire in the 21st Century, by Henner Hess[/url] (Great article, can definitely recommend).

Now the models used had two criticisms. The first model was the psychiatric model, which looked at the individual and found that the majority of the individuals (not all) found guilty and imprisoned that were a part of the RAF had a troubled childhood and suffered trauma's. However the problem with this was that there was no control group, and as such we have since found that in fact many of these traits could be found among, for instance, politicians too. 

The other model was the social model, which found that indeed the effects of being repressed had harmed their integration in society and caused them to be driven further away from the rest of society, which increased the speed at which they radicalized. This model however did completely ignore all personality traits of the domestic terrorists, which none would argue was a smart idea. 

A combination of the two models is preferable. It is hard to implement, as both models are built from opposing views, however. The psychiatric model blames the individual, and is a very right approach to this situation, as it removes all blame from the rest and makes it easy to punish the criminals harshly. The social model was made by left wing criminologists, and thus is very much based on society, removing (large amounts of) blame from the individual, even if there is clearly a lot of blame to be placed on them. 

Never the less efforts should be made to combine these.

From this we can take that repressing groups that are in a 'danger zone' so to speak is not a smart idea in all cases. It would be hard to argue for 'giving ISIS a platform to speak' but it is much easier to argue this for the KKK, as they do take part in peaceful protests (as ... chaotic as they can get.) Assuredly, criminalizing them would be a bad move, as it forces the groups to disband, and forces the radicals among them (that are already dangers) to go underground to hide their association with these ideas - in turn radicalizing them even more quickly due to echo-chambering, paranoia and a sense of justification that is found in their repression ('white genocide' would be easily 'proven' by 'silencing the ones that see the truth'). It would be a self-inflicted timebomb, which is not preferable, obviously.

Therefore one can only conclude that although it is very hard to say, criminalizing the KKK would be a mistake. If one clings to their ideology, it would be easy to say 'we must ban the KKK because they spread hate' but the effects would be disastrous. If one looks for efficiency and effects of policy - not criminalizing them would be the better option.

Let me know what you think.