Thursday, March 4, 2010

Is the Southern Poverty Law Center Terrorizing Decent American Patriots?

By JB Williams Thursday, March 4, 2010

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) is very influential in the current administration, almost single handedly responsible for defining “domestic terrorists” for the Department of Homeland Security and ratcheting up the racial rhetoric like never before in U.S. history, in the name of so-called “social justice.”

In the latest diatribe to come out of the Montgomery Alabama based mini-ACLU, titled - Rage on the Right - The Year in Hate and Extremism—the group lays out their justification for striking fear in the hearts of every Tea Party, 912 and town hall activist, angry over the federal governments mishandling of their country.

The SPLC report opens with—“The radical right caught fire last year, as broad-based populist anger at political, demographic and economic changes in America ignited an explosion of new extremist groups and activism across the nation.”

According to the report—“The anger seething across the American political landscape—over racial changes in the population, soaring public debt and the terrible economy, the bailouts of bankers and other elites, and an array of initiatives by the relatively liberal Obama Administration that are seen as “socialist” or even “fascist”—goes beyond the radical right. The “tea parties” and similar groups that have sprung up in recent months cannot fairly be considered extremist groups, but they are shot through with rich veins of radical ideas, conspiracy theories and racism.”

At least they properly identified some of the causes for widespread frustration with the current administration—”soaring public debt and the terrible economy, the bailouts of bankers and other elites, and an array of initiatives by the relatively liberal Obama Administration that are seen as “socialist” or even “fascist”—and they are right, the anger goes way beyond the confines on the Tea Party, 912 and town hall movements, to include more than 61% of the nation who believe that the Unites States is in certain decline.

But they get it predictably wrong on their claim of “anger seething across the American political landscape—over racial changes in the population…”

The widespread anger isn’t over “racial changes in the population,” nor is the nation angry over what the SPLC refers to as “non-white immigration.” The public anger started long before anyone ever heard of Barack Obama, but this group thinks it’s all about Obama. Isn’t everything all about Obama?

Like the political leftists the SPLC hopes to prop up with such insane reports, they fail to differentiate between “legal immigration” and “breaking and entering.” What the SPLC sees as only an issue of “race” over “non-white immigration,” is actually anger over “illegal immigration” and the increasingly high cost to a shrinking number of American taxpayers, including the fact that the problem has bankrupted state and federal budgets and left the borders wide open to intruders, some of whom are gang thugs and outright terrorists that threaten national security as well.

We have a security and economic problem largely due to the lack of border control and unenforced immigration laws. It has nothing to do with race. It has to do with national sovereignty and security, economic and otherwise. Still, some Tea Party groups like Dick Armey’s Freedom Works are on record supporting illegal immigration and amnesty for millions of illegal aliens.

In short, the SPLC makes the average American patriot sound like Hitler reincarnated, and paints every citizen reasonably concerned about the future of their country, like a Timothy McVeigh wannabe.

Despite the federal takeover of the banking, mortgage, auto and now health care industries, the SPLC can’t seem to connect the obvious dots between Obammunism and Communism. As a result, anyone who disagrees with the current Cloward-Piven Strategy employed by Obama, Pelosi and Reid, must be a “potential domestic terrorist” on the basis that they oppose the utter destruction of the freest most prosperous nation on earth, at the hands of overt Marxists, excuse me, progressives.

Just because we don’t call it Marxism anymore doesn’t mean that it isn’t still Marxism. Even under the much more marketable name “progressive,” the policies and results are the same and most Americans know it, even if the Southern Poverty Law Center doesn’t.

But on the basis of the SPLC report, Tea Party Express leader Mark Williams was openly attacked by MSNBC anchor Dylan Ratigan on national TV this week.

Williams was right, however. Radicals do exist in almost every group and most people can tell the difference between radical extremists and average decent citizens concerned about their country. Not every Democrat is an extreme left-wing Marxist, but some are.—Not every Muslim is a Jihadist, but some are.—Not every pet lover is an extreme PETA terrorist, but some are. Most people, excluding Dylan Ratigan and the Southern Poverty Law Center, can tell the difference between all of them.

Likewise, the political right is no exception. We have a few extreme crackpots too. And to be sure, when extremists, racists, anti-Zionists, anti-Semitics and anarchists rear their ugly heads anywhere, they should be separated from the otherwise healthy herd of average American patriots.

I have met and heard from thousands of real patriots across this country over the years. 99% of them are salt-of-the-earth Americans, the very definition of the word patriot—“a person who loves, supports, and defends his or her country and its interests with devotion.”

When one bad apple rears his head spewing skinhead rhetoric and railing against “Zionists” and “Jews” while engaging in efforts to seat like-minded extremists in positions of power via his seemingly harmless organizations, wagthedog2010.com/ and networkamerica.org/, the rest of the legitimate movement must call them out, distance themselves and maintain integrity within their ranks.

Ratigan was right about that… and if legitimate patriotic citizen organizations fail to denounce such nonsense, people are forced to speculate as to just how legitimate that organization might be.

Where Ratigan and the Southern Poverty Law Center are wrong is in their effort to use one bad apple to spoil an entire nation full of good, honest, decent American citizens, or make them feel like any dissenting voice will be labeled an act of racism or even worse, terror, just because they oppose socialized everything.

This is a form of terrorism.

Making average Americans so afraid to speak openly about their country or their government for fear of being labeled “extremists,” or being audited by the IRS for no reason other than their political views, or God forbid, being arrested and detained like “potential terrorists” just because they have a deep love for their Constitutional Republic, freedom and liberty, should in and of itself be a crime.

Mark Williams said and did nothing indecent on MSNBC. But Ratigan was completely indecent towards guest Mark Williams, and he felt entirely justified, on the basis of the SPLC report, which is full of false statements and over-blown accusations, and paints with a very broad brush.

Racist organizations see everything as an act of racism, just like liars think that everyone lies.

On Inauguration Day 2009, 65% of Americans were hopeful about the new President and only 16% were “strongly opposed,” despite the color of Obama’s skin. The 16% were not opposed to his skin color - they just didn’t buy his moderate rhetoric. They knew what was coming…

It wasn’t until Obama replaced his moderate sounding campaign rhetoric with a steady diet of heavy-handed far left policy pushes that the citizens began to turn on Obama. A year later, only 25% of Americans support the leftist policies of the administration, the rest of America is strongly opposed and Obama intends to forge ahead regardless.

To even suggest that the increasing anger towards the tone-deaf administration has anything to do with race, says more about the Southern Poverty Law Center than it does the 75% of Americans who oppose every Obama policy initiative today.

And to issue key national security reports that paint every dissenting American as a “potential domestic terrorist” on this basis is in and of itself, an act of terrorism, aimed at silencing the legitimate voice of dissent.

But why am I not surprised to see this tactic coming out of a left-wing organization while the country is in an all out political battle for the very soul of the nation?

And why does this private partisan organization have so much influence over this administration’s security agencies?

JB Williams Most recent columns

JB Williams is a business man, a husband, a father, and a writer. A no nonsense commentator on American politics, American history, and American philosophy. He is published nationwide and in many countries around the world. JB Williams’ website is jb-williams.com/

JB Williams can be reached at: letters@canadafreepress.com

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