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]
You mean AFTER they purge the dissenters.
It's tragically amusing to me that the media is in the tank for the "Appointed Won." They don't realize that once his plan is completely implemented, the press will be the first to be purged.
“what it calls “conspiracy-minded antigovernment ‘Patriot’ groups.........a fair description of the Founding Fathers. “
Outfits like the SPLC, Islam loving Grover Norquist despise our founding fathers. They actually believe they are smarter. And that makes them dangerous.
In typical liberal fashion, they’re showing their true hand in all of this.
The “White Supremacist” movement in America, particularly the National Socialists, come from the far LEFT Democrats. Same with the Nazis (National SOCIALIST WORKERS Party). Yet, they are targeting white conservatives and misappropriating the name of “Nazi” to us.
Meanwhile, those of us who proudly associate as Constitutional Conservatives are seeking the ultimate inclusion in America through homogeneity with borders, language, and culture.
The Democrats and specifically the Democrat white supremacy movement is more interested in racial purity, which is actual a counter-movement to La Raza, which is the actual puppeteer behind all of this amnesty business. They are NOT interested in integration with American culture. They don’t want to learn our language, they don’t want to work with our people or within the bounds of our laws. They are, for all intents and purposes, an invading army trying to reclaim ancestral lands from their Hispanic cultural heritage.
BTT!
taxpayer subsidized “grievance politics” yeah they’re 501C, like Reverend Wright. I supp-hose it helps him out to have a daughter who can handle money.
Wonder who takes care of St. Dee’s dirty laundry. Since they’re practically an arm of government now, like PBS and the ACLU—the IRS?
DC is however. Millions.
I said on a website with leftist moonbats that the SPLC has as much credibility as the KKK. They predictably went nuts.
Again, this SPLC was known to hire as an investigator a well known pedophile ~ and they were reluctant to get rid of him. They can never be trusted so if you've got a Republican quoting SPLC, and given the homosexual infiltration of the party ranks that ended up losing us the 2006 election and with that the control of Congress, just what is this Rubio guy up to.
He'd best come up with a really good answer, and telling us Mark Foley is one of his buddies is not a good start (which I note just to get us on the straight and narrow concerning these Florida politicians ~ there's a lot to suspect down there)
The splc assist the real racist groups by com
ming to neighborhoods where incidents of white hate crimes happen and distribute anti-black propganda to blame on white people. This communist group is an enabler of racial violence against conserative white folks.
Very true. And Dees is way beyond being a useful idiot - he is a dedicated enemy of this country.
I am still wondering what the body count and economic damage caused by “militias” is compared to, say, illegal aliens, or gangs.
“I have just gone through everything on the Southern Poverty Law Center and there is no mention of Free Republic anywhere. I think the person who wrote the article posted here, drew the name Free Republic out of the air and said they were in the Patriot group. Again, the name Free Republic is not on the Southern Poverty Law Center website and that is a good thing.”
You’ve gone through EVERYTHING??? This reference to FR was made in several places, and this IS NOT THE FIRST TIME. IIRC. Did you get into the Intelligence reports...which I can’t seem to access the text of?
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2013/spring
I’ll keep checking, I suggest you do the same. If it’s FR is not there, this thread should be pulled.
TeaParty.org is mentioned on that page, so they must be the good ‘tea party’.
SPLC, I first heard about this group in 1994 when I was temping for a law firm. I read what they had produced as arguments for claiming that the government should have known everything it knew in 1993 back in 1946-55 regarding the dangers of nuclear weapons and exposure to nuclear above ground testing. And I realized that they were just out for their own selves and not interested in anything but finding (and/or creating) ‘enemies’ to get the public to send them “donations to continue are work.”
This might help to see how SPLC talks about FR:
Type the following into Google: site:splcenter.org “Free Republic”
Haven’t read much of it yet, but they defintely list us as “haters.”
Thanks, Jim.
....garbage like this, “referendums at the antigovernment site Free Republic, commenters were apoplectic “
http://www.splcenter.org/home/2012/spring/white-hot
My objections to Obama for president had nothing whatsoever to do with race. It’s his love for Marxism and hatred of the constitution that I objected to. And now that he’s sworn an oath to defend the constitution “so help me God,” he’s doing everything in his “power” to do exactly opposite, just as we all suspected he would. Obama is a colossal failure as a president. How many trillions in unpayable debt do we have to sink before the useful idiots take notice? How high the unemployment and deep does Obama’s depression have to go before they see the light?
Nothing but the total destruction of America will please these idiots.
I won't write the statements here, except the writer said,
“comments Corsi made on the far-right Free Republic website.
That is all there is and FR is not listed on the groups they watch, nor is your name on the list of people they watch.
So, had not this man written these things on FR, FR’s name wouldn't be there at all.
and more garbage like this.
She was a spokesman for Free Republic, a Clinton-bashing Web site, in the 1990s.
http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/intelligence-report/browse-all-issues/2005/winter/the-nativists-0?page=0,9
“My objections to Obama for president had nothing whatsoever to do with race. It’s his love for Marxism and hatred of the constitution that I objected to”
Anyone who even vaguely knows ‘Jim Thompson’ knows that! ;<)
I can’t even recall now who called you that...was that the SPLC?
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