Extreme anti-government U.S. groups at record high, could grow: report
By Colleen Jenkins | Reuters – 3 hrs ago
–The first mistake here is the title. “Extreme” is a relative term depending on your perspective, and anything can be classified as extreme in a subjective sense.
WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina (Reuters) – The number of extreme anti-government groups in the United States grew to an all-time high in 2012, and a backlash against federal gun control measures could fuel more growth in the movement, the Southern Poverty Law Center said on Tuesday.
–The second mistake is quoting from the “Southern Poverty Law Center” as if they were some kind of legitimate source. Those people are nothing but a left wing propaganda machine, and anything but an objective unbiased research center or source of information. Also, if people are anti-government then there is a reason for it. If the government continues to act ridiculous and set itself against the people then more people are going to be anti-goverment.
Active militia and so-called Patriot groups totaled 1,360 last year, a massive jump from the 149 recorded in 2008 in an annual count of extremist groups by the Alabama-based civil rights organization.
–Again, what objective basis is there for calling these people extremists? The formation of militias is entirely Constitutional, and stems from the 2nd ammendment. There is no basis for calling these people extremists. Patriots are the guardians of freedom in this country, if the government is doing it’s job then they should not be at odds with any patriotic person. It is when they are doing things they should not do then we have a problem. I also do not see the point in qualifying “patriot” organizations with “so-called” unless one is trying to condemn anyone who self identifies as patriotic. Just because the SPLC calls people extremists does not make it so. Reality is objective.
The number of organizations the center terms hate groups, or those that attack minority groups, dropped slightly to 1,007 in 2012 from a record high of 1,018 in 2011.
–These so-called statistics are worthless as the means of classification are entirely subjective. What makes someone a hate group? That they hate someone? Can you prove they hate someone? If so then you had better classify the Black Panthers, New Black Panthers, and SPLC as hate groups.
Active hate groups identified by the center are scattered throughout the country and include the Ku Klux Klan, neo-Nazis, white nationalists and racist skinheads.
–Mentioning the KKK and Neo-Nazis in the same article with patriots does not put them on the same level or establish an association, although I know that is what the author is TRYING to do. The KKK and Neo-Nazis are hate groups, it’s true. Skinheads are Neo-Nazis, so mentioning them separately serves no logical purpose, and calling them racist is gratuitous because there are no non-racist skin heads. The author and the two editors clearly do not know what they are talking about, and are attempting to make it look like there are more white racist groups then there actually are.
Nationalism is not racist nor is it predicated on hate. Nationalism is simply the belief that every people group has the right to self rule, and part of that involves having a country in which they are the majority. Nationalism has everything to do with self preservation and a respect for human dignity, and jack all to do with racism. Calling someone a “white nationalist” is about as coherent as calling someone a white Democrat. Nationalism is anti-Imperialist. The left is good at condemning imperialism when it WAS perpetrated by white people, but does not have a problem with imperialism when other groups are involved.
So I can’t help but get the impression that the author is trying to throw out terms to look informed, and to make the WS movement look larger than it is, but the fact is she is grossly ignorant. Also, if we are going to go after racist groups why is there no mention of La Raza? Seriously. Because Obama met with them? Well, that doesn’t make them non-racist.
Some organizations, such as Christian groups, strongly object to their categorization by the center as “hate groups” and say the civil rights organization is itself stirring up hatred.
–Because it is.
In a letter on Tuesday, the center’s president urged Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano to shore up federal resources devoted to countering the threat of domestic hate and extremist groups.
–Oh yes, because a police state is the answer. Once we have a police state then everything is going to be all rainbows and unicorns. This is a perfect example of how the left is motivated by hate and fear. They want the government to beat on people that they hate, without understanding, and they don’t stop to think about how the type of system they are advocating might affect them. Once the police state is established the SPLC people will be just as jacked if they stay out past curfew as Captain America.
“As in the period before the Oklahoma City bombing, we now also are seeing ominous threats from those who believe that the government is poised to take their guns,” said president J. Richard Cohen on behalf of the law center.
The Patriot movement last reached a peak in 1996, a year after right-wing extremist Timothy McVeigh set off a truck bomb outside the Oklahoma City federal building, killing 168 people. McVeigh and a co-conspirator were convicted. McVeigh was executed.
–What is “The Patriot movement,” and why is she capitalizing “Patriot” but not “movement”? Not only do we have yellow journalism, but also bad writing in general. Claiming that patriotism and terrorism are linked does not make it so, but we have to expect this coming from the same people who are continually comparing the Founding Fathers to Islamic terrorists. The fact is the real patriot movement peaked in the 1700′s, and resulted in the English despots being thrown out in favor of a more just adminstrative system.
Since both the author and her source are being subjective, there is no way of pinning down exactly what she means, but there are lots of people who will read this article and all they will take from it is; patriotism = bad, and police state = good.
As long as the government is doing it’s job the there is no reason for the government to be at odds with patriots. Patriots are the people who love their country. If he government is doing anything other than what they should, then they are criminals and should be treated as such.
Homeland Security spokeswoman Nicole Stickel said on Tuesday the department has been working with law enforcement “to better mitigate and respond to violent extremism, regardless of the ideological beliefs that may motivate it, including violence perpetuated by violent sovereign citizens and anti-government militia groups.”
–So basically they are manufactoring an excuse to institute a fascist/communist police state. They have been laying the ground work for some time now. They are bringing in the drones, and un-Constitutional legislation that allows the targetting and killing of American citizens if they are deemed to be a threat by the state.
The number of such groups, whose adherents view the federal government as their enemy, dwindled in the late 1990s and early 2000s only to rise sharply in the past four years.
–Because the Federal Government views us as the enemy and has treated us accordingly. The economic policies have bankrupted this country and saddled us with debt. As the economy languishes Obama and friends decide to give away more money to countries and people groups who hate us. Obama should have been arrested and dragged to jail in handcuffs for giving money to Hamas, and the Muslim Brotherhood. That is absolutely criminal. But aside from the economy, they also attack our freedom. They stockpile guns, ammunition, and now tanks, while trying to manufactor excuses to disarm us. They flood our country with unwanted 3rd world immigration and make us pay for those people. They already view us as the enemy, and if they want to change our perception of them then they need to change their actions toward us. Patriotic people only have a quarrel with anti-American policies. Stop those policies and there will be no problem.
A sluggish U.S. economy combined with the election and re-election of Democrat Barack Obama as the country’s first black president have stoked anger and fear in some Americans and helped drive the growth of extremist groups, said Mark Potok, senior fellow at the center and editor of the report.
–No, no, his being PART black has nothing to do with it. The left continually brings that up as if it were some sort of trump card that somehow delegitimises attacks on his policies. But it’s nothing more than shameless disgusting hypocrisy. The left, and the liberal media, was at the forefront of the attacks on Herman Cain. Unlike Barack Osama, Herman Cain was a real black man, and an American. Obama is a half-breed Kenyan Muslim, whose only black American ancestry comes ironiclly from his mother. I’m sick to death of hearing the left try to tie in rational policy objections with racism. Just stop.
Any government which is at odds with the people needs to either change what they are doing to step down. The fact that growing numbers of people are overtly upset with Obama and the Dems should tell them something. I don’t know why they thought rigging the election would ever lead to popular support. Maybe they didn’t and they are fine with people hating them because one way or another they intend to establish a police state with a command economy.
GUN CONTROL EFFORTS COULD SPARK NEW GROWTH
Potok said the national conversation about gun control since the December shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut elementary school could cause the number of anti-government groups to swell again.
–I am not convinced that the government didn’t have a hand in Sandy Hook. But what they can do to reverse some of this anger is back off on the gun control. If you don’t like where it is leading then back off.
Congress is considering bills that would ban assault weapons, expand background checks for prospective gun buyers, crack down on illegal gun trafficking and improve school security.
–If they were serious about protecting the schools then they would put armed guards in the schools or require the staff to carry weapons.
A number of states are contemplating laws aimed at nullifying any federal gun control measures.
“We are seeing this huge reaction to the potential of gun control,” Potok said. “And that reaction is so angry that it is hard not to be afraid of what is coming down the road.”
–So then rather than bother us, get on the government and tell them to stop doing what they are doing, this isn’t rocket science here. We are also scared of what these criminals in the government have planned for this country. They have stockpiled coffins, ammunition, and tanks for domestic use. They have staffed and activated the FEMA camps, and they are preparing to deploy drones.
Potok said membership totals for U.S. hate and anti-government groups were difficult to ascertain. He estimated there are between 200,000 to 300,000 people involved in hate groups and 300,000 to 400,000 in militia groups.
–Being opposed to the government and loving your country is hate according to these people, and saying that it is does not make is so.
Among hate groups identified by the center is the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian lobbying group, due to its anti-gay stances. The group strongly rejects its categorization as a hate group and says “reckless rhetoric” from the Southern Poverty Law Center spurred a shooting at its Washington headquarters last summer. The center denies the charge.
“They are the ones who are fomenting hatred against us which has resulted in violence against us,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council. “To label us a hate group is clearly a slander.”
–Yes it is, but slander is what the left does. All of their arguments are predicate on emotion and fear of freedom. But that’s OK, the more they cry “hate” and “racist” the less meaning those terms have.
The number of hate groups may also increase in response to immigration reform measures that reinforce their members’ fears about the country’s changing demographics, including the projected loss of the white majority, the law center said in its report.
–It is amazing how much capacity the left has for criticizing the people who critisize policies rather than looking into the policies themselves. They recognize tat they policies are contraversial, but are incapable of thinking about what that is.
Again, the government needs to stop what it’s doing. Nobody wants to be replaced by a different people group, and we don’t want to see our country dragged down to the level of Mexico or the Middle East. Where are we supposed to go if our country gets wrecked? Obozo killed the space program so we can’t go to Mars any time soon. The only purpose of the “immigration reform” is to fix things so that Democrats will be able to win every election hands down. They want to flood the country with Democrat voters. Marginalizing the people in favor of foreigners is a terribly unjust way of going about to get votes. This is why people are anti-government, because the government is anti-us.
(Reporting by Colleen Jenkins; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and Andrew Hay)
–This article makes a mockery of journalism.
Comments (33)
This sort of irresponsible “journalism” is largely what is left (no pun intended) in this country. The press is an arm of the leftist liberals (redundant, I know). We who love our country have no quarrel with legitimate immigration and those immigrants becoming responsible, English speaking citizens.
But like all people of good will, Americans who love their country do not love to see it wrecked and controlled. Government tyranny was the reason for our declaring our independence all those years ago.. Now, that enemy government resides within our borders, and we have to declare it to be illegal and inhumane – antiAmerican!
@quest4god@revelife - That’s right, but if anyone wants to come here they come here legally, and they need to contribute rather than drain from the system. But as for legal immigration I don’t think we should let in more people than our economy can handle, and we also need to be careful who we let in. No Muslims under any circumstance.
I totally agree, because they are all of those things.
My goodness! Incredible post!!
I find that as America goes further and further down the tubes, I am less and less a hater.
One more proof that logic is dead for most.
Didn’t read your paranoid, idiotic, vapid tripe.
You’re a pointless waste of space. Kill yourself. Do the world a favor.
@ImNotUglyIJustNeedLove - Thanks man. I don’t see any of this left wing stuff as having anything to do with America, any more than a person dying of an infection is the infection. I’m still patriotic, but I don’t identify with our government on any level.
@mtngirlsouth - It’s certainly dead for the political left.
@kill_yourself - Hello H loves C, you do have permission to come in here and comment on whatever xanga username/account you are currently using. I never blocked you.
Also, how do you know what I wrote here is a “paranoid, idiotic, vapid tripe” if you didn’t read it? Not too smart of you. I don’t know why you even attempt to be clever or whitty when you so blatantly lack the capacity for it.
I’ve been seeing this sort of tripe since 1995 – it’s all federally-funded boilerplate BS from the SPLC and Mark Pitcavage at the ADL.
Today I looked at the Jonestown massacre due to term drinking the kool-aid. If you look at the Wikipedia on the Johnstown massacre you would see an extreme example of how the term socialism could be used and destroy a group.
Maybe we are entering into an experiment on tolerance with Homosexuality. I can’t say if Family matters will be right or prophetic but I reserve my judgment on issues dealing with Gay Rights.
Speaking of experiments, what Arizona and other states have tried to restrict immigrants that were not allowed in legally is still a social experiment. California is too invested in immigrant labor for farm work and the economy is going back to the “usual” practices.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - I am surprised that we agree that some of the legal immigration practices are counter productive. Letting in cheaper labor to do skilled work (lying that they could not find competent American workers to do the job) maybe getting out of hand.
Typical propaganda bullshit. The Neo-Nazis are NOT patriotic in the least. They hate what America stands for. So why are they lumping them in with patriots? In order to instill fear for folks that don’t understand what patriotism is actually about. They do it, so anyone that speaks out against something the gov’t does, will automatically be associated with those true hate groups.
The ironic thing is, I have seen more hate come from the left than the right or the libertarians. There has been more violence from the extremes in the left, than the extremists in the right. As much as we all think the Westboro folks are loons, they have remained peaceful. It’s been the leftist groups like ALF, ELF, the Weathermen, G8 rioters. “Right-wing” racist groups like the KKK, Neo-nazis, etc aren’t truely right-wing. The further right someone is, the less gov’t they would want. Anarchism is the very extreme of the right. These groups want gov’t laws to limit minorities. Hmmm… limiting… isn’t that more of a totalitarian thing? For the record, totalitarianism is the left end of the political spectrum. (Yes, that is simplified, but illustrates the point of my comment and the absurdity of the author of the above article.)
Leftist attacks have been pushes to implement change (ALF and ELF attacks, for example, to push for changes to enviornmental law) . The attacks that have occured by those considered on the right have been reactionary, or payback, for previous events (McVeigh’s attack on the federal building in Okalahoma was a retalliatory response to the events in Waco, that led to the murder of innocent children by our own government). Many of the mass shooters have also had left-leaning political views, (or have just been plain old insane. May be a correlation there…)
This is nothing new, however. The left (as evidenced by any comments made by Xanga’s most popular leftists) always resorts to character assassination and correlates any opposing views to hatred, even when it doesn’t exist, such as the standard liberal response “if you don’t want to raise taxes, you must hate the poor.”
@grim_truth - Well said. Yes I agree that anarchy would be on the far right, which is why I always laugh at those teenage kids who try to say that anarchy is synonymous with Communism. The only way to have a political spectrum is to have each end be polar opposites, or opposing, and everything in between is on a gradient. It has more to do with structure than motivation. The problem comes in when people start trying to place ideologies and individuals based on motivation rather than methodology.
Yes the left is a good deal more violent, at least, those of them which are not complete sissies. But all one need do is look at the occupy movement to see what sort of people are on the far left. They had rape and drug abuse, while the Tea Party rallies were entirely sane and peaceful.
Yes the left doesn’t have anything substantive to say, so they make things up, and they think that slandering the individual somehow invalidates the argument.
@PPhilip - SO basically it’s a reference to being a blind cultist.
Here’s the thing about the illegal immigrants. Businesses like them because they can use them to get around minimum wage requirements, the Democrats like them because they can use them for votes, and because they want to use them to replace white people as the majority. My theory is that the Dems want to be a small white elite ruling minority, like the government of Mexico, and have all the wealth concentrated in their hands. Now they are talking about giving citizenship to 11 million illegal immigrants. This is the equivalent of shoving all the clothes under your bed and claiming that you have cleaned your room. The mess is still there, you just made a lazy slop attempt to make things LOOK clean. Now, making these people legal means that all the benefits businesses have enjoyed from having them are gone. Now they have to be paid minimum wage, so they probably aren’t going to keep the same slop jobs. Also, they are now eligible to legally receive welfare benefits, which means that they will be an even bigger drain on the system. More illegals will come, and later on the government will want to give them citizenship, and then we will ultimately end up with two Mexico’s glaring at eachother from across the Rio Grande.
@mikewb1971 - ADL?
@mikewb1971 - There needs to be a Grand Jury investigation of the activities of the SPLC, especially including collusion with federal officials to invade the privacy of Americans.
The ultimate irony is the left often actively wishes violent acts to be done to their “enemy” (those who are conservative), or that they suffer horrible deaths.
What is a “patriot?” The term has been hijacked by so many people that it’s practically lost any meaning. But the people that do thump their chests to “patriotism” do tend to be hateful, extreme, and racist.
@lonelywanderer2 - Exactly
@coolmonkey - Well, they never defined “patriot” in an article. As for whether or not they are racist, I disagree sharply. The fact is there is a continual concerted effort on the left to use accusations of “racism” and “hate” to silence the opposition.
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - At the same time, the Right Wing accuses people for being too PC and that racism is no big deal. It’s just a matter of perception.
Stockpile it amongst the other divide and conquer strategies.
@LannyBudd - They’re experts at d&c, they push all the right buttons.
It’s really not a choice to choose which side of that line to stand on anyway… it’s about getting off the court, because the gym ceiling is about to collapse. : )
Wow running a news release from the Southern Poverty Law Center as if it were a real story. As if that group was anything more than a way for its founder to make a lot of money and to attack as many groups on the right as he can. 89% of all the money the they take in goes to pay themselves and to promote more donations. They are a fraud
This same kind of thing happened in pre-war Germany. Fear propogation is only the next logical step to having the ”true homeland patriots” turning you in because they didn’t like what you said, or that you once said you had guns, and there could be a reward if you still did… brownshirt of the month award with a good parking spot… I dunno, maybe it’s collective alzheimer’s or something…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFmkwmc1xKY
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex – ADL = Anti-Defamation League.
Mark Pitcavage got his job there after he got about ∅2,000,000 from the feds (Bureau of Justice Statistics, if I recall correctly) for his “State and Local Anti-Terrorism Training.” He then created a website titled “The Militia Watchdog” which is now archived at adl.org.
@soccerdadforlife – Not exactly holding my breath on any sort of grand jury as you call for gaining traction, especially with this administration – Morris Dees has been a backer of the DNC going back to the 1970s.
@trunthepaige – Basically what the SPLC and ADL do is point out some Aryan Airhead group like the KKK and portray them as being one or two steps from taking over the country – “but you can help stop this with your donation . . . .” It seems to have worked for them – the SPLC has a six-story building in Birmingham and over ∅100,000,000 salted away.
Patriot - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot
Not to be confused for a nationalist - http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalist
The two terms are not interchangable.
@coolmonkey - Depends on what you are calling “racism,” the severity of it, and what you are planning on doing in response. The PC movement is bad for a multitude of reasons. It stems from “Critical Theory” which was created by the Frankfurt School. Critical Theory is basically deconstructivism targetted at western civilization. I don’t want to give an inch to an ideology that is designed with the purpose of both destroying my civlization, and muzzling my freedom of speech. I people get their feelings hurt then that’s their own problem. They should better learn to control their own feelings.
Also, it’s worth noting that the left allows for racism against white people and Jews carte blanche.
@LannyBudd - That’s right. The whole Trayvon Martin thing was another example. In that case they were trying to induce a race war, and they would probably have used it as an excuse to declare martial law.
@trunthepaige - You know this isn’t the first news story I have seen coming from the SPLC. I have seen a few others, but this is the first one I blogged about. Liberal journalists are quoting from them as if they were a source of viable data, which just serves to underscore how being a liberal either causes or is predicated upon living in crazy land.
@saturnnights - Yes I have already heard that they want people to report their neighbors. Kids are already being encouraged to report on their parents for doing things that supposedly hurt the environment. It’s disgusting. However, I think the next type of “patriotism” is going to be “world citizenry.” They want to replace the patriot, the man who is loyal to his country, with the “world citizen” who is loyal to an ideology and power structure. I am entirely convinced that these villains are trying to establish world government.
@mikewb1971 - Disgusting
@Ambrosius_Augustus_Rex - well see? Now you’re the one playing semantics. You make it sound like Conservatives are pure and Liberals are the racist bigots.
@coolmonkey - Let me ask you a question: Do you believe that when white people took over North America from the Native Americans it was wrong? Native Americans lost their land, self rule, and were politically and socially marginalized in their homeland. Right or wrong?