I’m grateful the Southern Poverty Law Center determined it was politically expedient to drop Dr. Ben Carson, one of America’s most beloved brain surgeons and role models, from its thoroughly disgusting list of “haters.”
Apparently, the racketeering outfit that poses as a “progressive” civil liberties group realized it had crossed a bridge too far in its smear efforts against, quite possibly, the most respected black leader in America (and, yes, I include Barack Obama and all members of his administration and frequent White House visitors such as Al Sharpton).
The group’s stock-in-trade is raising hundreds of millions of dollars through fanning the flames of phantom threats posed almost exclusively by those who love America and its Constitution. The others are a collection of actual scum-of-the-earth racists, neo-Nazis and other certifiable lunatics who, through guilt by association, are intended to reflect badly on the liberty proponents and Christians and Jews on the list, who are the SPLC’s real targets.
The ultimate objective with SPLC is raising money – big money. It does this through lawsuits – lots of lawsuits, occasionally even on behalf of real victims of racism. It pockets most of the money raised through heart-wrenching direct-mail pitches.
The most famous example was a judgment SPLC won for a black woman whose son was killed by the Ku Klux Klan. While Morris Dees and company raised $9 million sending out solicitation letters featuring a gruesome picture of the victim, the mom received a total of $51,875 in the settlement. Dees pays himself more than $280,000 a year from the “charity.”
Reason writer Jesse Walker may have said it best when he wrote: “The Southern Poverty Law Center … would paint a box of Wheaties as an extremist threat if it thought that would help it raise funds.”
But enough of the background on this group of degenerates.
In falling on its own sword with regard to removing Dr. Carson from its hate list, the SPLC acknowledged it is indeed vulnerable to public opinion. In offering a pseudo-apology, SPLC took even more swipes at the good doctor.
We can tell the truth about SPLC all day, but it still hurts to be put on anyone’s list of haters – unless the organization is so thoroughly discredited that no even remotely serious person or news organization or pundit would think of using it as a source.
Unfortunately, many shamefully do – including, for starters, MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS and Salon.com, which actually republishes all of SPLC’s lying news releases! What does that tell you about Salon? Not only that, but SPLC works closely with Barack Obama’s Department of Homeland Security to identify “extremist” threats to national security.
That’s why I personally would like to get off of this list – even though sometimes I feel like it’s a badge of honor to be on it with such distinguished company as friends like David Barton, Lt. Gen. William “Jerry” Boykin, Gary DeMar (with whom I have profound theological and eschatological disagreements but who, nevertheless, is a stand-up freedom fighter), Tom DeWeese, Frank Gaffney, Pamela Geller, Alex Jones, Cliff Kincaid, Larry Klayman, Molotov Mitchell, Tony Perkins, Larry Pratt, Robert Spencer and David Yerushalmi.
Think about how shameless SPLC really is: Boykin and Perkins are still on the list despite the fact that the group inspired a domestic terrorist and would-be mass murderer to conduct an armed attack on their Family Research Council years ago with the intent of shooting and killing every single employee and leaving a Chik-fil-A sandwich on their corpses. That guy, by the way, now serving time in an attack that resulted in a non-fatal bullet wound to FRC’s black security guard, never made it to the SPLC’s “hate” list, despite getting his marching orders from the group.
I, on the other hand, have been linked in the imagination of the SPLC with the Muslim Marathon bombers – despite also being labeled as an Islamophobe. Go figure.
With the recent Ben Carson smear in mind, as well as SPLC’s record of inspiring violence against FRC and, more recently, in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, where one of its fans apparently killed three people, it’s time for all people of goodwill to distance themselves from this for-profit vile peddler of lies and disinformation – even as some certified, card-carrying “progressives” are already doing.
To give you just one example of what I mean, several years ago, Stephen Bright, a genuine civil rights activist and progressive with a conscience, was invited to an event honoring SPLC’s director, Morris Dees.
Bright politely declined the invitation, stating: “Morris Dees is a con man and fraud, as I and others, such as U.S. Circuit Judge Cecil Poole, have observed and as has been documented by John Egerton, Harper’s, the Montgomery Advertiser in its ‘Charity of Riches’ series, and others. The positive contributions Dees has made to justice – most undertaken based upon calculations as to their publicity and fundraising potential – are far overshadowed by what Harper’s described as his ‘flagrantly misleading’ solicitations for money. He has raised millions upon millions of dollars with various schemes, never mentioning that he does not need the money because he has $175 million and two ‘poverty palace’ buildings in Montgomery. He has taken advantage of naive, well-meaning people – some of moderate or low incomes – who believe his pitches and give to his $175-million operation. He has spent most of what they have sent him to raise still more millions, pay high salaries and promote himself. Because he spends so much on fundraising, his operation spends $30 million a year to accomplish less than what many other organizations accomplish on shoestring budgets.”
That says it about as well as it can be said.
Media wishing to interview Joseph Farah, please contact [email protected].
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