Hate accusers are getting some serious pushback
Hate accusers are getting some serious pushback
By Robert Knight - Washington Times - Sunday, July 2, 2017
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Frustrated by its inability to win elections, the left is attempting to silence opponents through intimidation, either in the streets or in the courts.
The latest example is the hijacking of Guidestar USA by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC).
Guidestar is a database of more than 2 million nonprofit and non-governmental (NGO) organizations. It’s considered the foremost authority on nonprofits, and had a self-avowed reputation for “remaining neutral.”
That changed when a left-wing activist, Jacob Harold, came aboard in 2012. Mr. Harold, whose bio boasts of donating to the Obama campaign, extensive activism on behalf of climate change groups, and hosting a NARAL Pro-Choice D.C. men’s event, tweeted a photo of himself holding a sign protesting President Trump at the radical Women’s March in January.
Apart from Vermont ice cream magnates Ben and Jerry, it might be hard to find a more radically leftist major CEO. So it’s no wonder that Mr. Harold welcomed the Southern Poverty Law Center as an authority on “hate groups.” Using SPLC’s “hate map” as a resource, Guidestar smeared 46 organizations, many of them Christian, as “hate groups.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center has a long history of abusing nonprofits and individuals with whom they disagree. They tar innocent people and may have inspired at least two terrorist incidents. The SPLC’s “hate map” lumps Christian and conservative organizations with neo-Nazis, skinheads and other violence-prone groups. The most common offenses? Failing to salute the brave new world of sexual anarchy or unlimited illegal immigration.
On Aug. 15, 2012, a disturbed young man, Floyd Corkins II, who later told the FBI that he had been inspired by the SPLC’s “hate map,” attempted to commit mass murder at the D.C.-based Family Research Council. He had a knapsack full of extra rounds and Chick-fil-A sandwiches that he had planned to stuff into the mouths of his victims. Stopped by Leo Johnson, a courageous guard who was shot while subduing him, Corkins became the first person in U.S. history to be convicted under Washington, D.C., law of domestic terrorism.
On June 14, Bernie Sanders follower James T. Hodgkinson, who had “liked” the Southern Poverty Law Center on Facebook, shot up Republican congressmen and their staffs at a baseball practice in Alexandria, critically wounding Republican Majority Whip Steve Scalise, and injuring four others. The Louisiana congressman had been singled out by the SPLC for an alleged connection to a white power group, a charge he denies.
Earlier this month, Guidestar began adding the Southern Poverty Law Center’s hate group labels to 46 nonprofits. Last week, Guidestar, and the SPLC by implication, began getting major pushback.
On June 21, a group of 41 Christian and conservative leaders, including former Attorney General Edwin Meese, signed a letter to Guidestar demanding deletion of the defaming labels, which Guidestar did — sort of. The labels were removed but the damage was done and the information is available upon request.
Next, Liberty Counsel, a Christian legal foundation, filed a defamation lawsuit on June 28 in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia against Guidestar for posting a label on Liberty Counsel’s Guidestar page describing it as an SPLC-designated “hate group.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, which built its reputation years ago by monitoring the Ku Klux Klan and other violent groups, still raises money by the boatload with its scare tactics and has a $300 million endowment. That allows it to do things like send a dozen attorneys to New Jersey, where a jury under a liberal judge in a kangaroo court in 2015 found a small Jewish group, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing (JONAH) guilty of consumer “fraud” for directing people to counselors who aid people in overcoming unwanted same-sex desires.
The Southern Poverty Law Center also listed former Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson in the “hate” category for his stances on marriage and biblical morality before public outrage made them withdraw the label.
Three years ago, the FBI dropped the Southern Poverty Law Center as a source for identifying hate groups. In March 2016, the U.S. Justice Department accused the Southern Poverty Law Center attorneys of “lack of professionalism” and “misconduct” for falsely characterizing the Federation for American Immigration Reform and the Immigration Reform Law Institute as “hate groups.”
Maajid Nawaz, a moderate Muslim who opposes jihad extremism, says he is also suing the Southern Poverty Law Center for defaming him and his organization, the London-based Quilliam Foundation.
If there is still doubt as to the Southern Poverty Law Center’s motives, it was laid to rest in an interview with SPLC Senior Fellow Mark Potok, who said that his group’s “hate group” criteria “have nothing to do with criminality or violence or any kind of guess we’re making about ‘this group could be dangerous.’ It’s strictly ideological.’”
Mr. Potok is also on video stating, “Sometimes the press will describe us as monitoring hate crimes and so on. I want to say plainly that our aim in life is to destroy these groups, to completely destroy them.”
And the Southern Poverty Law Center still has a shred of credibility? Sure they do. Ask any “mainstream” journalist.
• Robert Knight is a senior fellow for the American Civil Rights Union.
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Southern Poverty Law Center: "Our Aim in Life is to Destroy These Groups Completely"
Yep, SPLC, the definition of a hate group....
My goodness... An anti-racist organization plays hardball.
Them niggas gittin' too uppity. Gonna hafta hang a few!
A mock anti-racist group that aims to destroy any group or person they perceive as holding a view contrary to their own.
Do I need to post more photos of actual dead people - actual victims of American terrorism?
Lynchings, firebombed churches,... a young woman murdered just a few days ago?
American fascists kill people.
Comment removed for skirting the CoC. jwc2blue
I'm not criticizing that they oppose the fascists and the murderers, its those who are concerned about what is happening in America and the world and are trying to warn everyone of impending terror (which the mainstream media refuses to do) that they name as hatemongers that I oppose. Their broad brush is just TOO broad, as was pointed out in the article.
American fascists are not imaginary. They kill people.
The fact that the media are reluctant to call terrorism by its name when it is done by Americans is regrettable... but that's the media's problem.
Don't join the fascist fellow-travelers' campaign against the antifascists. Stay focused on who actually kills innocent people.
jwc2blue,
I'd like an explanation of the deletion, please.
I'll tell you why. You accused me of supporting fascists and murderers. You deserved the violation. And don't tell me what not to do in your follow-up. I'll do whatever I damn well please.
Of course you will do as you please.
My intention was not to hurt your feelings... that's kinda silly at our ages.
I did mean to smack you, though, on the presumption that you had not thought through your actions. I was trying to wake you up.
What you were doing doesn't fit with the person I think you are.
Hiurt my feelings? No way can you hurt my feelings, but you can try to insult me, can't you. I have seen your comments on more articles than this one where you appear amazed that commenters appear to you to be supporting fascism and/or murderers and/or racists, when they may well just be supporting the free speech that the First Amendment is supposed to guarantee, and decrying those who declare users of free speech to be hatemngers, as I did about SPLC.
I was quite awake, and I guess you are learning that trying to smack people will earn you a vacation from using this site.
And your not knowing the person I am? LOL
I will not reply to you again on this topic.
You are a person I appreciate, even if I think you are gravely mistaken on this. So I'll let it drop, with you.
If everyone in the world thought alike, this would be some kind of dystopian Orwellian world.
Them niggas gittin' too uppity. Gonna hafta hang a few
What does lynching innocent people have to do with the SPLC labeling an organization a hate group because it opposes letting illegal aliens jump the fence whenever they feel like it or thinks same-sex marriage is a biblical abomination or believes that gender cannot be "reassigned"?
Now the SPLC is sending money offshore in a reaction to the growing number of defamation suits against it.
I have no problem with monitoring any group that advocates or commits violence for political purposes.
I do have a problem with attacking anyone because their political position on marriage disagrees with theirs.
When the label of "hate group" is pasted on the head of an organization simply because they express a different opinion on social issues (like the current gender bending nonsense), then the SPLC and others like it become a dangerous agent of suppression in an Orwellian world where the only speech that will be free is the speech with which the state agrees. Sue them for defamation and, if they move their assets offshore, then sue them in their individual capacity.
Good article buzz. Thanks for posting it to remind people that fascism can take different forms and can come from the left as well as the right.
Very good article
"Frustrated by its inability to win elections, the left is attempting to silence opponents through intimidation, either in the streets or in the courts.
.................................................................................
Spurred on by trump's victory democrats have take a page from the president and are using intimidation now.
Trump calls it "Counter punching"
LOL Too bad !!
What s next ? insults, grandiose promises, better intimidation or threats ? Perhaps we'll get around to bold faced lies, playing the victim card, deflection and denial soon as well.
O what a shame.
Who the Hell started this shit ? We should run them out of government. lol
The ones who should be run out of the country are the ones who promise to destroy those who do not agree with their philosophy.
This is what happens when the left equates sexual perversion and immigration lawlessness with race to claim that not letting them do whatever they please is the same as lynching them.