Fake definitions: Blowing the whistle on America's thought police
By: Frank Wright
The SPLC is a terrorist inspiring hate group. They seek to destroy groups and people who dare to disagree with them. They have been scandalized with corruption, racism, and misogyny within their midst to the very top of their stinking evil core. That they sit in judgement of others and 3rd parties listen to their biased bs and act on it toward their targets is a sick and pathetic joke. Almost as big of one as those who do use their ratings to judge others at any level. Pure intellectual laziness and a desire to content control the political or religious expressions of others
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Fake definitions: Blowing the whistle on America's thought police
Deep in the false and fevered swamps of fake news and fake history resides a third mendacious denizen: fake definitions. Appearing first with a hiss in the Garden of old ("Did God really say?"), fake definitions have become the mother's milk of Leftist progressives.
Look, for example, at the fake definition of "hate group" proffered by the folks at the Southern Poverty Law Center. In the interest of full disclosure, our nearly three-year-old defamation suit against the SPLC (for placing us on their so-called "hate map") is currently before the Eleventh U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
The SPLC argues that the First Amendment allows them to have their own definition of hate group. In this assertion, what constitutes a hate group is a matter of opinion. You can have your opinion; I can have mine. But this is sophistry on the level of wanting to have your cake and eating it too. The SPLC publicly states that D. James Kennedy Ministries is a hate group. This statement implies an assertion of objective fact, and in published statements the SPLC makes clear it intends for individuals, government agencies, and businesses to rely on it as fact. However, when pushed in a court of law, the SPLC claims that its implied assertion of fact is merely opinion.
At the heart of the matter is the SPLC's responsibility to recognize the "reasonable man" (or woman) standard in the law, with the central questions being: How does an average reasonable person understand the "hate group" accusation applied so wantonly and recklessly by the SPLC? Is it intended as fact or mere opinion?
This is critically important as only a tiny fraction of Americans will ever see or hear the SPLC's proprietary definition of a hate group. Yet the false and defamatory label it applies to organizations with which it disagrees travels far and wide – especially so in the era of fake news. So then, what is the commonly understood definition of hate group? It's not all that complicated.
Hate groups are about actions – not thoughts. We call it criminal behaviorbecause it's an action not merely an idea.
Thomas Jefferson deftly articulated this distinction in his oft-cited letter to the Danbury Baptist Association in 1802, where he wrote: "The legitimate powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions."
Protected speech
Opinions are protected speech. When hate is limited to an emotion, attitude or thought based upon a particular bias, it's essentially an opinion. Such opinions, no matter how disagreeable, are protected speech. They are not crimes – and this is where the wheels come off the SPLC's definition of hate group.
From its own website, the SPLC defines "hate group" as:
An organization or collection of individuals that – based on its official statements or principles, the statements of its leaders, or its activities – has beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics (emphasis added).
This is a definition of hate group based purely on the opinions or core beliefs of a group. What are practices but expressions of belief. The SPLC makes this clear by insisting that "an organization does not need to have engaged in criminal conduct or have followed their speech with actual unlawful action to be labeled a hate group" (emphasis added).
With this rhetorical sleight of hand, the mask comes off. The SPLC makes a fortune by "attacking and maligning" the speech of others; yet how the SPLC is singularly qualified to evaluate the speech of others, across a wide range of religious, social, and cultural issues, escapes the notice of most neutral observers. But herein lies the genius of Progressive thinkers: If the viewpoint in question is different than theirs, it must be hate speech.
All of this reveals the SPLC to be little more than the Thought Police depicted in George Orwell's 1984 – where the thought itself is the crime. And remember, the SPLC's "hate group" designations are steadfastly advanced as "fact" in their voluminous direct mail letters, digital distribution, and public statements. Yet, when they must look a judge or jury in the eye – "Well, your honor, these are just our opinions."
In search of the reasonable man
Which leads us back to the "reasonable man" standard of the law and D. James Kennedy Ministries' quest to be heard before a jury of our peers. The reasonable man understanding of hate group is: malice or bias bent on bodily harm. The defining characteristic of a genuine hate group is violence. Anger is not necessarily hateful. Frustration is not necessarily hateful. Neither are strong opinions different than your own. The difference is violence. How do you know some group hates you? They try to hurt you. Think KKK, skinheads, Nazi Brownshirts, and radical Islamists flying jet fuel-laden planes into buildings.
To have the SPLC characterize as "hate" the work of Christian ministries – those defined by their love for God and their fellow man – is an admixture of Orwellian newspeak cross-bred with Freudian projection. It's both false and defamatory. And here is the grand irony: While it's inarguable that violence is the watermark of authentic hate groups, where are the violent Leftist groups on the SPLC's so-called hate map? Antifa? Black Lives Matter? The Occupy Movement? They are nowhere to be found. They must all be busy with "fiery but otherwise peaceful protests."
The SPLC has publicly pledged to "destroy" those with whom it disagrees. That sounds a lot like promising violence – and suggests that the SPLC itself traffics in hate. A reasonable question here is: Why do our businesses, government agencies, and news media so thoroughly embrace and endorse the questionable judgment of an organization that wants to destroy others simply because they disagree?
My own opinion is that the SPLC doesn't really believe we are haters. They know better. Yet they are happy to use the epithet as a form of reputational terrorism. The goal is to silence the opposition. The goal is viewpoint discrimination – all through fake definitions.
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A lot of the groups the SPLC identifies are hate groups. Or, at the least, are groups of bigoted people.
However, not all are justifiably labeled as such, and liberal political people represent their labels as some kind of scientific finding, which is bogus and can damage reputations. Also, their listings have led to violent attacks, but oddly no one on the Left wants to hold them accountable for it.
There is a reason the SPLC gets sued for their labels.