Something struck me as quite absurd while watching the Discovery Channel last week. In a documentary about the Ku Klux Klan, Jeff Barry, Imperial Wizard of the American Knights of the KKK, uttered one of the most ridiculous non-Dubya statements I’ve ever heard.

Barry said he knew how Martin Luther King Jr. must have felt fighting for equality for blacks during the civil rights movement seeing as he is fighting for suppressed whites “ten times harder” today.

Suddenly my heart, once filled with abhorrence toward the vile racist group, felt sorry for these people, these victims of an America gone wrong. It turns out all they ever wanted was to free us whites from the grasps of those oppressive minorities. I had no idea they were working for me the whole time. All I thought they ever did was adopt highways.

The poor, oppressed KKK – the Rosa Parks of extreme violent white supremacist groups everywhere.

In their attempt to turn back the clock to 1840 and rid the world of all that is not parched white, the KKK, in reality, is nothing like Martin Luther King, Jr., a great man with an actual vision.

I know a lot of people may have a number of questions about the KKK, and after watching the hour-long documentary, I feel I may be an expert on the subject.

Question: If Jeff Barry is an imperial wizard, why doesn’t he just turn all those blacks and gays and Jews into toads like other wizards?

Answer: Jeff Barry is not a real wizard. He just plays one to get on TV.

Q: Why do KKK members wear hoods on their heads?

A: Because these people need to cover their faces from the people they are degrading during their “protests.” They are weak and shameful and need to wear these dunce caps, or “hoods” if you prefer, because they don’t have the guts to go at it face to face.

Q: At their protests, why does the KKK surround themselves with fences? If they really want to exterminate the “enemy,” why not let “the enemy” try to attack them, and then take them out?

A: Wild animals are put in cages.

Q: Why do KKK members commit acts of murder, an example being the 1963 church bombing that killed four young black girls in Alabama?

A: Because they are murderers.

That’s right, murderers. The KKK has moved past lynching blacks in the 1800’s right into home arsons, church bombings and cold-blooded murder.

And in between their world famous “faggot, nigger, Jew” rantings, the Klan finds the time to quote, of all books, the Bible.

The words “faggot” or “nigger” do not appear anywhere in the Bible, at least not in any Bible I’ve ever come across. And why “Jew” has become a derogatory curse I can’t figure out, either.

It seems to me that anyone who can read the Bible and get “black people are evil” out of it needs to turn their second amendment-protected shotguns on themselves.

It’s just not there. True Christian idealism and white supremacy are on opposite sides of the spectrum.

Christian idealism – love thy neighbor.

White supremacy – love thy straight, Christian white neighbor.

Christian idealism – turn the other cheek.

White supremacy – burn a cross on the lawn of a black person.

The Klan, along with all the other hate groups masquerading under the banner of Christian idealism, have no real motive.

What do they think needs to be done? Is there a chance all blacks, Jews, and homosexuals will leave the United States anytime soon? No.

Does the Klan actually want all these people to leave the country? No.

If they did, then these people would have to go back home and shoot empty beer cans off the beaten pickups in their backyards. They’d have nothing to do with their lives and would fail to garner the only thing keeping them going – publicity.

Most extreme social activist groups have at least a touch of importance to them; even the New Black Panther Party and PETA have a couple of progressive ideas. But not the KKK or other bigot organizations.

Racism and bigotry are signs of a weak and unintelligent human being. They are, in my opinion, genetic deficiencies that go beyond cultural or societal influences.

The KKK, along with all bigots, are a step behind on the evolutionary scale and will never amount to anything more than a good source of laughs and further evidence that man does, indeed, come from apes. Some are just a block or two behind.

Tim Paluch is a junior in journalism and mass communication from Orland Park, Ill. He is opinion editor of the Daily.