Posted on 04/11/2013 10:15:58 AM PDT by AuntB
The Southern Poverty Law Center has released its annual report on "The Year in Hate and Extremism," in which the organization estimates the size of the "extremist" threat. Since its count of hate groups has dropped since last year—the number went down from 1,018 to 1,007—the center is hyping a 7 percent increase in another category: what it calls "conspiracy-minded antigovernment 'Patriot' groups." The SPLC's definition of "Patriot" is pretty broad: The list ranges from the conservative websites WorldNetDaily and FreeRepublic.com to the Moorish Science Temple and its offshoots. The Moors, a black militant movement, are presumably included because they sometimes borrow ideas from the sovereign citizens and other folks often associated with the right.
For SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok, that 7 percent surge is a sign that a growing terrorist threat demands the Department of Homeland Security's attention:
Eighteen years ago, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote then-Attorney General Janet Reno to warn about extremists in the militia movement, saying that the "mixture of armed groups and those who hate" was "a recipe for disaster." Just six months later, the Oklahoma City federal building was bombed. Today, with our country’s political polarization at historic levels and government officials being furiously demonized by Patriots, we may be approaching a comparable moment.
In the 1990s, warnings that might have averted some of the violence from the radical right failed to stick. Now, as we face another large and growing threat from the extremists of the Patriot movement, the country needs to do better. One important start would be to demand that the Department of Homeland Security, which gutted its non-Islamic domestic terrorism unit after unjustified criticism from the political right, rebuild its important intelligence capabilities.
A different story emerges if you study the list itself. For one thing, while the number of Patriot groups has gone up since last year, the number of militia groups has gone down, from 334 to 321. That doesn't necessarily mean that there are fewer people involved in militias: One quirk of the SPLC's decision to measure activity by counting groups is that if an organization splinters in a faction fight that shows up as growth, but if two smaller groups join forces it looks like shrinkage. But given that Potok invokes the militias in both the opening and the conclusion of his article, and given that the article makes a big deal of the increased Patriot count, it seems disingenuous not to mention that the militia count is actually declining.
More important, neither the number of militias nor the number of Patriot groups writ large is a good proxy for the number of potential terrorists. As I wrote in response to an earlier edition of the SPLC's list, the Oath Keepers—whose chapters take up 67 spots on the 2013 list—have a history of distancing themselves from violent-minded supporters, and the whole point of the organization is to persuade the government's agents to refuse orders the group considers unconstitutional, a central tactic not of terrorism but of nonviolent civil resistance. Meanwhile, 41 groups on the SPLC list are chapters of the John Birch Society. Far from an adjunct to the militias, the Birchers—notorious for their own conspiracy theories—devoted a lot of effort in the '90s to debunking the more elaborate conspiracy yarns popular in much of the militia world. They frown on insurrectionary violence, too, sometimes suggesting that it merely plays into the hands of the Grand Cabal.[snip]
And every month for the following 18 years this jerk has issued the same warnings. And what's happened? NOTHING.
There were people who were right about 9/11 - made the call on radical Muslims. Would the left allow for those people to make THE SAME CALL for the next 18 years with NO ATTACKS? The hater stirs the pot paying some right winger will break. But we don't. We're just American citizen who happen to be conservative...
The closest the liberal haters have come to 'Victory' was Zimmerman - who turned out to be a Hispanic... and liberal... and related by blood to blacks.
But the MSM was primed and ready for the attack. NBC doctoring tapes, Matthews ready to call for 'right wingers' to be 're-educated'... If Zimmerman had be white white, they would have destroyed him...
“Holy crap. So now, presenting and/or discussing the news is a terrorist act?
The SPLC *IS* a terrorist organization. “
Yes, presenting the truth, especially about the powers that be of BOTH parties is considered a terrorist act. And it all starts when we run to outfits like CPAC & the ACU who sanctions censorship of any criticism of its leaders Norquist and Khan who facilitate radical Islam and unfettered illegal immigration.
We have NO HOPE of stopping the left and their agents like SPLC as long as the GOP operatives and elected reps like RUBIO use them against us while WE fund them to install leftist agendas.
Smart has nothing whatsoever to do with being a useful idiot. Lots of otherwise smart people are (or were) useful idiots. But they have a strange way of disappearing in the end.
As long as I have been here, we have been attacked by NGOs, the media, academia and the Executive branch.
Given the above list, I feel honored to be called a FReeper. [plus, as you all know, I use my real name].
You're right Jim, the Founders would have been shooting by now.
5.56mm
“SPLC is a privately run “nonprofit” set up some years ago by a shyster lawyer named Morris Dees. He saw how Black leaders were making money crying racism and knew he could do the same as he had a background in mass marketing. He set up SPLC and makes money by sending out mass mailings of alerts about what he says are racist or right wing dangers. Most on the list are not a threat or way old and gone. Of course every alert is a fundraising plea, most of the money raised goes to Dees and his few top employees.”
You described perfectly how it’s being done on OUR SIDE as well. Just substitute ATR or ACU for SPLC and Grover Norquist for Morris Dees, and it is the SAME ANIMAL! Norquist & the gang of 8 call us ‘Bitter enders’ and racists and then turn around and ask for $$$ so they can destroy conservatism. IMO, it’s money laundering and an effort , which is working too well, to destroy conservatism and the tea party.
I know how difficult it is to realize we’ve been used, be we have and ARE! And it’s not by the left, it’s by our own.
[snip] “And he’s [Norquist] personally doing fine: ....revealed this week that he gets two-thirds of his funding from two big corporate billionaire-backed nonprofits: the Center to Protect Patients Rights, which donated $4,189,000 to Americans for Tax Reform in 2010, and Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, which gave him $4 million.” http://towncriernews.blogspot.com/search?q=Karl+Rove
Jim one of their lead investigators ~ if you can call it that ~ was a notorious pedophile. Took forever to get them to kick that guy out ~ they know who and what they are.
Sorry to disappoint you,"Southern Poverty Law Center".
If I ever met him the first question I'd ask him is how often he and his boyfriend get checked for rectal syphilis.
Jim Robinson, no one has tried harder, in all these years to distance FREE REPUBLIC from any one who might even appear to be racist, bigoted, white supremacist organizations than you. This is the thanks you get for it, and that saddens me, especially coming from those who we’ve worked to get elected and have given millions of $ to over these years to support the ‘conservative’ cause. I don’t know who to trust any more, do you?
see post7
He who controls the language, controls the debate.
The SPLC is just one of the many left wing groups which orchestrates the news prior to the terrorist attacks then controls the spin of the news after the attack to piggy back on the orchestrated news before the attack.
The OKC bombing is a perfect example.
A background in direct marketing. Big difference there. He has a database known derogatorily in the industry as a "suckers list," of people who are easily rattled into coughing up money whenever they don a Klan hood and yell "BOO!"
Agree with AuntB. I’ve been a posting member here since the Clintoon years and J Robinson has kept the focus on rational, moderate and non-bigoted discussion of politics & current events. Those who violate that format are pushed out. FR is a place for conservatives to vent or talk in a responsible way.
Rubio is a totally unproven conservative! He is only a presumed conservative by everyone who currently thinks he is a righteous conservative!! I haven't seen any evidence of his passing any litmus test for consistent conservatism!!!
By their works and associates ye shall know them because there really IS something to "guilt by association!" Ask any kid in prison who got a ride from friends that just stole a car and then got stopped by the cops about guilt by association, they'll tell you they are innocent with much rhetoric to back it up!!!
Great post AuntB!!!
“By their works and associates ye shall know them because there really IS something to “guilt by association!”
And THAT is exactly the point, Waspman. Grover Norquist (along with Rubio) is now associating with SPLC, is a good friend of CAIR and everything radical Islam. He’s a lobbyist for Microsoft and anyone on the left who pays to push a leftist - cheap labor deal and lobbied to build the mosque on ground zero.
Sooner or later, even the thickest heads must see if it walks, talks and STINKS like a duck, it IS!
Southern Poverty Law Center revenues, 2011: just shy of 39 million samolians. Manufacturing hate is lucrative! Who’d a thunk it?
A fair description of the Founding Fathers.
“Southern Poverty Law Center revenues, 2011: just shy of 39 million samolians. Manufacturing hate is lucrative! Who’d a thunk it?”
Yes, yes it is. Did you notice how much of that came from tax $$$?
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