SPLC intel report casts wide net for ‘extremists’
A politically-skewed activist organization has warned law enforcement officials nationwide of the threat posed by the so-called “Patriot movement.” The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)’s Fall, 2009, issue of the “Intelligence Report” expands those designated as extremists, with alarmist language artificially combining a disparate group. The report said, “Militiamen, white supremacists, anti-Semites, nativists, tax protesters and a range of other activists of the radical right are cross-pollinating and may even be coalescing.” On the SPLC website, one report claims, “anti-government rhetoric spills into the Mainstream,” listing conservative celebrities like Sean Hannity and Red State’s Erick Erickson as purveyors of “white-hot antigovernment rhetoric.” Where did SPLC get the data for that assumption? None other than the leftwingers at Media Matters, where bloggers dismiss every major study on media bias and claim the media favors the right.
Tax protesters and white supremacists have united? Whites and minorities alike who are upset with out-of-control government spending would be shocked to find out that they are “coalescing” with the Ku Klux Klan.
As to the “range of other activists,” the report primarily focuses its ire on the Oath Keepers, an association of military members, veterans, law enforcement officers, and firefighters who reaffirm the oath they took to support and defend the Constitution. If the Constitution is the basis of our government, how does swearing an oath to the Constitution and pledging not to follow unconstitutional orders make one “anti-government?”
The article goes on to paint the patriotic movement as a fearful group of militia members, racists, and terrorists – who even reap “illegal fortunes.”
The article also states that “there has been a remarkable rash of domestic terrorist incidents since Obama’s election.” What does the SPLC consider to be “domestic terrorist incidents,” town hall protests? Predictably, the SPLC article joins Democrat politicians and members of the media in portraying opposition to the president’s agenda as racist.
In: Society · Tagged with: Constitution, free speech, Minuteman Project, Oath Keepers, Southern Poverty Law Center, Tea Party
