1. I don't agree with the Ku Klux Klan, the Arian Nation, or other racist groups on most issues. The are tremendously anti-Semitic, hateful, and are just plain wrong in many of their tactics and views. However, I do understand what motivates them on some issues. I have seen the stereotypes that fuel their fire.
It seems that illegal immigration has sparked a resurgence in their ranks. That is a hot issue with me and much of the U.S. population, as well. From the Alliance Defense League web site:
New York, NY, February 6, 2007 … The Ku Klux Klan, which just a few years ago seemed static or even moribund compared to other white supremacist movements such as neo-Nazis, experienced "a surprising and troubling resurgence" during the past year due …show more content…
Those who worked in them did thankless jobs formerly handled at home or by the church, and included undertakers, private tutors and ‘madhouse - keepers’. Families paid for secrecy and discretion, and private ‘madhouses’ left few records. Artefacts show keepers used physical restraints such as leg-irons and manacles. Some keepers adopted ‘management’ techniques developed by Renaissance horse - masters to control stubborn horses.Quaker businessman William Tuke founded the York Retreat in the 1790s. It was the first asylum to shun physical restraint and coercion. Its influential methods became known as moral treatment, which relied on constant surveillance. Around the same time physician Philippe Pinel famously unchained mental patients in Paris asylums, declaring they were sick, not criminals. This story is more legend than fact. Nevertheless, Pinel was a hero among asylum reformers and promoters in the golden age of asylums that followed.Public funding poured into asylum construction between 1800 and 1900. Advocates for building asylums included Dorothea Dix. Like many Victorians, they placed faith in bricks-and-mortar solutions to social problems associated with the accelerating pace of modern life. The patient population in England went from about 10,000 to 10 times that. Asylums built in this period impressed public officials, as the buildings were designed to be majestic and therapeutic.