Oh Virginia Where Art Thou? When Freedom of Speech and Expression Goes too Far, and Shows Up on the Back of a Pickup Truck

Oh Virginia, the great people of your state have suddenly found a way to be overtly proud of their racism and bigotry. Of course I wouldn't dare blame your governor McDonell for that. Hell, if I remember correctly he delivered the republican rebuttal to Barack Obama's State of The Union address, no? Yep, and if I remember correctly, there were a number of Black people strategically positioned as his backdrop as he spoke.

But I digress...

So now Virginia, one of your sons, felt the need to show his budding southern pride by placing the above pictured mural on his Ford F-150. Unfortunately for him, people on the internet were keen enough to pick up his hidden message within the mural. No Virginia, he didn't hide the fact that he hates Muslims. It was the secret encoded message of his license plate:

Virginia's Department of Motor Vehicles is so accustomed to drivers trying to sneak lewd, gross, hateful or racist messages onto personalized license plates that it has a rigorous process to root them out.

A manager in the Personalized Plates Work Center reads through every application, putting any suspicious combination of letters and numbers into a computer program that analyzes the potential plate for hidden meaning. Questionable messages go to a 20-person Word Committee for review and a vote. Among the few printable examples of rejected license plates, according to Melanie Stokes, a member of the Word Committee, are "JERKA55," "IPOOPD," and "HORNI1."

But sometimes, the system doesn't quite work.

The owner of a Ford truck bearing the license plate 14CV88 will have to find a new message after the DMV on Wednesday canceled its earlier approval of that series of letters and numbers.

A photo of the truck hit the Web a few days ago, went viral on car and other blogs and finally came to the attention of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, an advocacy group for American Muslims. On Wednesday morning, the group complained to the DMV that the plate contained a white supremacist and neo-Nazi statement.

A few hours later, the DMV agreed that the plate contains a coded message: The number 88 stands for the eighth letter of the alphabet, H, doubled to signify "Heil Hitler," said CAIR's Ibrahim Hooper. "CV" stands for "Confederate veteran" -- the plate was a special model embossed with a Confederate flag, which Virginia makes available for a $10 fee to card-carrying members of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. And 14 is code for imprisoned white supremacist David Lane's 14-word motto: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children." (source: WaPo)

Yep, amd ironically the picture of this truck was taken while sitting in handicapped parking. No word yet on whether said truck has the requisite disability tags. But clearly the bigoted bias of the trucks owner should count as some form of mental retardation or stunted growth, right? Good work Virginia DMV for yanking this idiots tags and permanently banning it and it's message.