The Southern Poverty Law Center ceased long ago to be a neutral source of information.
As we have documented over the past years, SPLC has used the credibility it earned decades ago fighting the Klan to turn itself not only into a huge money-raising machine, but also to poison the political process:
- The Klan In Rhode Island? SPLC Exaggerates Again
- SPLC’s Democratic Party Mission
- Southern Poverty Law Center Completes Its Descent Into Madness
- Southern Poverty Law Center Still Peddling Lie That Giffords Shooter Was Right-Winger
SPLC’s “Extremist” watch lists are particularly notorious, and in some cases blatantly political.
Most of the people on the list are on it without much controversy, including Klan and neo-Nazi figures. But several critics of political Islam are on the list, as was Rand Paul in 2011 (accused of Electoral Extremism).
Landing on SPLC’s Extremist list can be politically deadly, and also deadly in the real sense. The Family Research Council made the list because of its position on same-sex marriage, inspiring Floyd Lee Corkins to go on a murderous shooting spree at FRC headquarters.
Yesterday I noticed a name I was surprised to see on the list: Ben Carson, listed as “anti-LGBT.”
If you read through the SPLC explanation, it boils down to Carson strongly supporting traditional marriage, and speaking in front of other groups that SPLC does not approve of. The SPLC narrative is highly political (emphasis added):
… Although the book amplified Carson’s name recognition, the breakout incident that made him a sensation in far-right political circles was his audacious public criticism of President Obama, who was sitting nearby at the National Prayer Breakfast in 2013. He lectured Obama on the national debt, called for a tax system along the lines of biblical tithes and touted health savings accounts that could be inherited by family members as a better option than any government plan. Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and other right-wing political commentators lavished praise on Carson. The Wall Street Journal headlined a positive review of the speech “Ben Carson for President,” noting that he may not have been politically correct, “but he’s closer to correct than we’ve heard in years.”
In a March 2013 appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity,” Carson bolstered his standing with hardliners by appearing to equate gays who wish to marry with pedophiles and humans who have sex with animals. Although he later apologized for the remark, claiming it was taken out of context and asserting that he loved gay people just as much as straight people, his words triggered an avalanche of protest from faculty colleagues and students at Johns Hopkins. He had been scheduled to deliver the university’s commencement address just two months later but withdrew rather than stoke further controversy. At around the same time, Carson, at age 61, announced his retirement from Johns Hopkins, effective July 1, saying he wanted to leave surgical practice at the top of his game….
Here’s part of the speech SPLC thought so significant a sign of hate that it highlighted it in the report on Carson:
Here’s how Carson explained his most controversial statement, highlighted in the SPLC report:
Is Carson really such an extremist that he deserves to be on the same list as David Duke and neo-Nazi leaders?
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Comments
Ben Carson? The Mr. Rogers of the conservative wing?
Half the people in the country will eventually make the SPLC Extremist List.
The idiots at the SPLC could work the rest of their aggregate lives and never benefit humanity a speck as much as Dr. Carson has in a year of his medical career.
But…hell…I am an extremist, too. I think marriage is a hugely important cultural notion, and it only means one relationship. The lie that that view equates to hatred is just one of those “SHUT UP!!!” tactics the Collective has to use.
SPLC supports selective exclusion, rather than principled tolerance. They have evolved to mimic their purported adversaries. They’re pro-abortion, too. The state establishment of religion that has promoted and subsidized the debasement of human life through an unprecedented, selective termination of wholly innocent human lives. They are poor representatives of moral and scientific principles.
re: pro-abortion
Rather pro-choice or selective and arbitrary assignment of value to human lives based on a fairy tale and faith-based criteria; for personal causes of wealth, pleasure, and leisure; and the state’s compelling interest to secure taxable assets and reduce the problem set.
I think the SPLC should be placed on their own list.
There is little doubt the SPLC is an exteme hate group.
The Southern Poverty Law Center ceased long ago to be a neutral source of information.
Was it ever?
The SPSC makes its money by making bogus claims that others are “hate” groups, then solicits donations with the claim that it is “fighting” those groups. It’s a sort of fund-raising perpetual motion machine, itself generating the “need” for it to exist. But considering its methodology, I’d call it a hate group.
Exactly. I suggest you upload that bio to Wikipedia.
I wish he could sue them. Who are they to try to tarnish a man’s reputation? This is just unbelievable!
There was some Christian mission, I think in Florida, which was placed on the “Extremist” list by the SPLC. The Christian mission immediately got a couple of attorneys and demanded publicly that their names be taken off that list, or the SPLC would be sued.
I appreciate your comment but let me reassure you that Dr. Carson cannot be hurt by the likes of SPLC. And SPLC does not know true fear until the parents of all the kids whose lives were bettered by Dr. Carson come calling. I have a feeling that they really value him and won’t stand for people messing with him.
BREAKING: Dr. Ben Carson puts the Southern Poverty Law Center on the “Irrelevant Bunch of Loons” list.
–Andrew, @LawSelfDefense
lol
I wonder if they’ve ever been audited by the IRS?
I don’t think they ever have, or ever will. They’re nothing but a useful branch of the Ruling Class, to keep us peasants in line.
The SPLC and the IRS are on the same side.
If Dr. Carson is on their “Extremist” list, then maybe the entire organization of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church (to which Dr. Carson belongs) should be on that list as well.
Hey, and while they’re at it, maybe the SPLC should add the Duggar Family of Arkansas to that list. Family wholesomeness and a strong demand for sexual purity is also “hateful” for the SPLC, right? After all, Josh Duggar works for the FRC…
Maybe they should add any Evangelical Christian church to that list as well. (That’s A LOT of people!) Or any Christian who dares to speak against The One and the Ruling Class in this country. Maybe they should add Conservative Catholics, or those who insist on having the Latin Mass, or even the Little Sisters of the Poor…
Oh, heck! Maybe the SPLC should save their breath and put the entire Conservative Christian movement into that list! they can even add Conservative Jews to the list, too! Even better: anyone in the country who voted for Mitt Romney in 2012, McCain in 2008 or W in 2000 and 2004 should be on that list! That’s over 60 million people they can defame and demonize, in one swoop!
Maybe even the SPLC can start making people wear sew-on badges on their coats or clothes to ID them easily on the streets, you know, for the Left to harass at their own pleasure. Easier for them to call the Left into rounding us all up like cattle and into a “Re-education camp” like Mao did in China…
Yeah, that’t be the idea! We should all flood the SPLC’s servers with e-mails stating that we want to add ourselves to the “Extremist” list, so that the entire nation see the SPLC for the maleficent and paranoid-schizophrenic Leftists they really are.
The SPLC are nothing more than spiritual and intellectual descendants of Maximilian Robespierre.
They would LOVE to do just that, of course……… 😉
I think you mean Orthodox Jews.
Maybe he’s a ……
WACIST ????
I am wondering whether the SPLC is doing this to Dr. Carson in the way certain MSM folks, some years back, “speculated” about the assassination of George Bush during his presidency — hoping, deep down, that some unstable person would do the job.
In fact, we already know of at least one murder committed after an unbalanced person listened to the SPLC.
It makes me wonder.
SPLC, enemy of democracy. They are nothing more than one of the MSM tools against liberty and freedom.
He made Bammy look bad. That’s why the SPLC doesn’t like him.
SPLC has a special place, right along side of those other Progressive / Socialist / Marxist tyrant wannbes. Its pretense in fighting what it labels as discrimination is on par with the ACLU’s pretense in fighting for civil liberties, equally bogus.
SPLC serves a purpose of placing labels on those it does not like; sometimes it hits the mark, sometimes not, yet the MSM treats all such proclamations alike. Some might say that the SPLC is a gathering of useful idiots.
The SPLC serves many small purposes, but the main two, I believe are:
–To provide a source, a data list, justifying or legitamizing attacking (via investigations by the IRS, smear campaigns, law suits or other court actions, etc.) any and all on that list – i.e. setting up the targets for Alinsky-takedowns. Somewhat reminiscent of the names fed to the “Committee of Public Safety” during the French Revolution.
–To provide a money laundering operation to ensure leftist progressives get the tax payer’s dollars (they are a 501(c)(3) group, I believe).
That anyone gives credence to this propaganda arm is frightening, IMHO.
What I find sad is that the SPLC calling Dr. Carson an “extremist” for holding biblical views on marriage is really not such an outlier. The more frequent description one finds is “hater.” For years now, both the mainstream media and the progressive-controlled academy have relentlessly labelled those with, well, normal, views about marriage, sex, and gender as “extreme” and “intolerant.” I would speculate that a decade ago this announcement would have been met by guffaws, even in major media outlets and by mainstream pundits. Instead, crickets, except for a few on the right (which I believe now, in many minds, automatically reads as “far right” or “extreme right.”). Sadly, it appears to me that the progressive vision of demonizing and marginalizing traditional values is, in large part, working.
An anecdotal aside: I recall, probably about 20 years ago now, having a conversation with a judge in California. Although a bit of a squish in my youthful judgment (oh, the embarrassments of youth!), he was a truly good man, a devout Christian (Baptist), and an excellent judge. The judge cops were beginning their agonizing over the Boy Scouts, an organization he actively supported. He said to me, “I hope that I don’t live long enough to be forced to choose between my faith and the bench.” I was very sad when he died, but now I consider his passing may have simply been God’s mercy.
Letter to our NM U.S. Senator Tom Udall (re: Shadow Party’s alleged agenda to take down America)!
http://teapartyorg.ning.com/profiles/blogs/letter-to-our-nm-u-s-senator-tom-udall-re-shadow-party-s-alleged
“Food For Thought”
God Bless America!
Semper Fi!
Jake