If You Oppose Torture and Gitmo, the SPLC Says You Are an Extremist

[Anti Federalist]

If You Oppose Torture and Gitmo, the SPLC Says You Are an Extremist

Posted by Bill Anderson on June 2, 2012 06:20 AM

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/113161.html

Tom Dilorenzo's article today highlighting activities of the leftist hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, exposes the darling of the New York Times and college faculties. The NYT takes everything coming from the SPLC as Gospel, as well as do college professors across the country.

Yet, even the SPLC's latest rant troubled the hard-left Mother Jones a little bit, but then the columnist that was dissenting fell back into line. (Apparently, she did not want to make the SPLC's "Intelligence Report," which is that organization's version if "kneecapping" people it does not like.)

Columnist Stephanie Mencimer wrote that one of the people making the list, Michael Boldin of the Tenth Amendment Center, came to his position through hard-core beliefs in the civil liberties that Leftists so loudly claim they support:


Boldin got into politics through his opposition to the Iraq war, not through the tea party or any other right-wing cause. He is a libertarian, and believes the Tenth Amendment applies to all sorts of things that right-wingers generally wouldn't agree with. For instance, he and his organization support pot legalization and the right of states to legalize gay marriage. Lately, though, he has been focused on state opposition to the new National Defense Authorization Act because he believes it could allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens—a position that puts him squarely on the side of the American Civil Liberties Union.

However, Mencimer, ever the Good and Loyal Leftist Soldier, then adds:


SPLC deserves credit for keeping tabs on the nation's potentially violent fringe elements, but it does seem like they are occasionally casting too wide a net in their efforts to identify the next Timothy McVeigh. But then again, it only takes one guy like him to create mass carnage. Maybe when it comes to monitoring extremism, you can't really have too much information.

In other words, anyone who dares speak out against the abuses of the state — and especially a state governed by Barack Obama — probably is planning on blowing up federal buildings or worse and needs to be monitored 24/7 — just in case.

In the end, human rights mean nothing to the Left, and all of the lefty talk about civil liberties is just that: talk.

[Anti Federalist]

Couldn't agree with this more.

If the SPLC was really interested in poverty and law it would be providing pro bono legal services to the thousands of poor Southern folks, black and white, who are railroaded into prison by corrupt cops and prosecutors, every year.



re: If You Oppose Torture and GITMO, the SPLC Says You Are an Extremist

http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/113171.html

Posted by Thomas DiLorenzo on June 2, 2012 12:27 PM

Bill, several people have emailed me to ask if the leftist hate group, the Southern Poverty Law Center receives government funding for its pro-government hate crusades. A number of other people have sent me articles about how the SPLC does get contracts from the Dept. of Fatherland Security, and probably other parts of the bureaucracy, to "educate" police on the "dangers" posed by all of us critics of unlimited government interventionism.

But the SPLC's main source of $$$$ is a large mailing list that started decades ago with the George McGovern for president campaign. This list includes the dumbest of the dumb, lowest I.Q. "liberals" all across America who are actually stupid and naive enough to believe the SPLC's over-the-top, hysterical nonsense that always implies that there is either a KKK guy in a white hood or a bomb-tossing terrorist behind every tree. According to public records, the SPLC sits on an endowment/hedge fund of around $20 million.

I am not the first to point out that, if it really were a "poverty law" organization whose purpose was to help the poor, it would not be sitting on $20 million. It would be using it to help poor people. Its top executives pay themselves in the neighborhood of $350,000/year and up. Every single one of them is a rich white liberal. A news report on the Web discusses how a former black employee has been threatening to sue them for discrimination since he thinks it's odd that not a single black man or woman is among the ranks of dozens of vice presidents of the SPLC.

I explained all this in more detail in my earlier LRC article entitled "Racial Racketeering for Fun and Profit: The Southern Poverty Law Center Scam."

[phill4paul]

Lip service and smiley glad handshakes from the left and the right. Done with both of 'em.

[Anti Federalist]

The MoJo article in question with picture credits by our very own Gage Skidmore.

SPLC Highlights New Extremist Leaders To Watch

—By Stephanie Mencimer
| Fri May. 25, 2012 11:12 AM PDT29.

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2012/05/splc-highlights-new-extremist-leaders-watch

http://www.motherjones.com/files/images/michael_boldin.jpg
Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center Gage Skidmore

The Southern Poverty Law Center published a new report this week on 30 up-and-coming leaders of the radical right. There are some old familiars on the list, like David Duke, and many others who probably won't come as much of a surprise to regular Mother Jones readers. SPLC singles out some of the chorus of anti-Muslim activists like Pam Geller, Frank Gaffney and David Yerushalmi as people to keep an eye on. There are some gay-bashers in there, too. Birther-conspiracy theorist Joseph Farah, the founder of WorldNet Daily, also makes the list. But not everyone on the group seems to rise to the level of menace that SPLC suggests.

Among those might be Mike Vanderboegh, a former militia activist from Alabama. Vanderboegh is probably most famous these days for having encouraged readers of his blog to break the windows of Democratic Party headquarters after the passage of health care reform, which prompted some of his readers to toss bricks through the windows of a few Democratic congressional offices.

Vanderboegh, though, is a bit more of a complicated character than the SPLC has made him out to be. His rhetoric is certainly inflammatory, but it's also mostly confined to his blog, which has a very small following. Vanderboegh has also helped bring to light some evidence of wrongdoing on the part of the government in the "Fast and Furious" gun scandal, in which the federal government allowed guns to be illegally exported to Mexico in the hopes of tracking them to major drug cartel leaders. (The ATF agents ended up losing track of thousands of the guns, which later turned up at crime scenes in Mexico and the US.)

He's also got a sense of humor, a rare quality in an extremist. (WTF? - I'm a larf riot - AF)

He responded to his inclusion on the list by writing a blog post about it that included a photoshopped picture of Mark Potok, the SPLC senior fellow who tracks right-wing extremism, wearing a tin-foil hat.

Another entry on SPLC's list that seems slightly off-base is Michael Boldin, the founder of the Tenth Amendment Center, which urges states to nullify federal laws they see as unconstitutional. SPLC links Boldin with the "Patriot movement" and far-right extremists. But it overlooks a lot of the issues that Boldin himself has championed. I met him two years ago at a Tenther conference in Atlanta, which definitely featured some fringey right-wingers, including the John Birch Society. But Boldin stuck out for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that he is a California hipster who travels with tins of sardines in his suitcase to ensure that he eats enough omega-3 fatty acids.

Boldin got into politics through his opposition to the Iraq war, not through the tea party or any other right-wing cause. He is a libertarian, and believes the Tenth Amendment applies to all sorts of things that right-wingers generally wouldn't agree with. For instance, he and his organization support pot legalization and the right of states to legalize gay marriage. Lately, though, he has been focused on state opposition to the new National Defense Authorization Act because he believes it could allow for the indefinite detention of American citizens—a position that puts him squarely on the side of the American Civil Liberties Union. That's why he was a little surprised to find himself on the SPLC list. He told me in an email:


I think these people are just lazy and aren't paying attention to the work we do, the columns I write, or the speeches I give. Or, maybe they're just exploiting fear of real radicals who use propaganda to advocate their wars, racism to justify their torture, and fear to promote their indefinite detention scheme - both in Guantanamo and here in the U.S. Then again, I just happen to think that most of those dangerous people are wearing suits in Washington D.C.

SPLC deserves credit for keeping tabs on the nation's potentially violent fringe elements, but it does seem like they are occasionally casting too wide a net in their efforts to identify the next Timothy McVeigh. But then again, it only takes one guy like him to create mass carnage.

Maybe when it comes to monitoring extremism, you can't really have too much information.

(Maybe we need government to monitor them, eh, Stephanie? - AF)

[Anti Federalist]

Lip service and smiley glad handshakes from the left and the right. Done with both of 'em.

Left boot, Right boot, marching together toward tyranny.

[ctiger2]

I can't wait til we can just ignore all these special interest groups AND the Federal Govt. Once the money stops working...

[oyarde]

Sorry SPLC , YOU have already branded one of the very few organizations I have ever belonged to as extremist .

[seyferjm]

State Power Loving Commies