Is Judge Napolitano a Hater?

Earlier this month, the empirically challenged "hate"-fighters over at the Southern Poverty Law Center put out a hit list of dangerous "patriots," defined as

people who generally believe that the federal government is an evil entity that is engaged in a secret conspiracy to impose martial law, herd those who resist into concentration camps, and force the United States into a socialistic "New World Order"

Included on that list were "The Enablers," of which one was Fox News commentator and author Judge Andrew Napolitano. From the SPLC entry:

[Napolitano] was scheduled to be the keynote speaker this past February at the first annual Tenth Amendment Summit in Atlanta, but was snowed in and never made it. He missed out on rubbing elbows with neo-Confederates, conspiracy theorists and antigovernment Patriot activists.

It seems the TV judge is vying to become a fixture on the far-right lecture circuit. He was also scheduled to address the 2010 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, a gathering of self-described "pro-liberty activists" who are striving to "cut the size and scope of government by about two-thirds or more."

Napolitano has joined other conspiracy theorists in falsely claiming that efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act were responsible for the crash of the economy in 2008. He called Sarah Palin's baseless accusation that Obama was trying to set up "death panels" a "legitimate concern." He falsely suggested that Obama bribed a congressman to change his vote on health care by appointing his brother to an appeals court.

Wait, he almost went to a conference about the Bill of Rights? Burn him!!

Anyway, if Napolitano is a big fat hater he should be dancing like Peggy Lee at a cactus farm over the new Mexican-prevention law in Arizona. Um, not quite:

Past Reason interviews with the Judge: Damon Root earlier this month, Brian Doherty in November 2007, Nick Gillespie in March 2005. Read Napolitano's Reason archives here, and watch below as he delivers speech about civil liberties in war time at an October 2007 Reason conference:

Comments

[Pro Libertate]

So skepticism about government is now bad. Does that make any sense at all?

[Nancy Pelosi]

Are you joking?

[TrickyVic]

Depends on how you look at it. You shouldn't complain about the entity that takes care of you. Now, how we got to the point that the majority of Americans think government should take care of them, I don't know. But dispite all the brewhaha from some, the idea of government as nanny seems to grow.

[Pro Libertate]

Honor thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

[MP]

Anyone who wants to cut the size of government is clearly not "pro-liberty". Only the police state ensures your liberty.

[Almanian]

Thank you, citizen, for reminding the vengeful, hateful, racist, homophobic, violence-inducing, seditionist tea baggers (like Judge N.) of this obvious, universal truth.

I love me some Big Brother - word!

[Lou Mann]

LOL, I think they are all haters. Comes with the bench

http://www.anon-vpn.se.tc

[Solanum]

Nothing on the SPLC website about the death threats against Trey Parker and Matt Stone. But I'm sure they'll release a scathing report soon.

[Episiarch]

They'll have an article up soon enough...about how Matt and Trey are haters.

[The Libertarian Guy]

The SPLC helped "inform" the fusion centers, which helped the left cement the notion that anyone right-of-center = a potential Tim McVeigh clone.

Fuck the whole lot.

[Brad Potts]

So because I think that the government played a major role in the housing bubble and that government lead rationing of health care is a serious concern, I need an eye kept on me?

Concern over increase in government intrusion and power to them is justification for government intrusion and power.

SPLC has got the self-fulfilling prophecy thing down pat. If you want to marginalize legitimate criticism and empower and embolden dangerously paranoid individuals, keep this up.

[Aresen]

"Naplolitano has ... falsely claiming that efforts to expand affordable housing through the Community Reinvestment Act were responsible for the crash of the economy in 2008."

Since the SPLC has already decided that teh eeevvvil bankers on Wall Street were solely at fault, any claims that other factors were contributory must be false. And the government's purity must not be questioned.

[Colin]

I bet the SPLC liked the judge when he was calling out the Bush Administration.

Just another group of phonies. Phonies who aren't even relevant.

[Slim Charles]

The Southern Poverty Law Center is a fucking scam. Captain Obvious, out.

[Gene Berkman]

Slim is right! SPLC is a fund-raising scam and extremely successful.

SPLC has an endowment approaching $200 million and it continues to send out fund-raising letters, claiming its ability to fight extremists is dependent on YOU SENDING YOUR LARGEST POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION!

[Babelicious Bertha Lewis]

SPLC is ACORN for fat cat democratic donors whose mouths are too pretty for them to risk taking it to the streets.

[T]

Napolitano is really the only person at Fox who I would describe as a principled libertarian. Stossel seems a little too results-based sometimes, while the rest of the self-described libertarians at Fox are really small-government conservatives.

I have to get around to reading Constitutional Chaos sometime.

[Mr. FIFY]

Nothing wrong with being a small-government *fiscal* conservative.

[Episiarch]

Who else at Fox, besides Beck, calls themselves a libertarian (not including Stossel and the judge)? I know that Beck was co-opting the libertarian name, and it's infuriating, but there are more of them?!?

[SIV]

I've heard Christian anti-debt counselor Dave Ramsey self-describe as a libertarian. He's got a show on their business channel.

[robc]

However, he qualifies that as libertarian on economics or fiscally or something. He is socially conservative.

But, he does distinguish between libertarian and conservative fiscally.

[SIV]

Ramsey generally tries to avoid partisan politics but actively advocates libertarian economic policy.
Outside of Reason circles there are quite a few social conservative libertarians. I hear tell one is a sitting congressman from Texas.

[DWCarkuff]

Stossel is a libertarian pussy compared to the judge. The judge pulls not a single punch and calls a spade a spade. I mean, like the cards not... you know.

[ed]

Happily, only the far left and their cable news network, MSNBC, give a shit about the Southern Poverty Law Center.

[TrickyVic]

""Concern over increase in government intrusion and power to them is justification for government intrusion and power.""

Of course. People in government want more power. Geospatial intelligence is all the rage these days, intrusion is necessary for information collection.

I'll give it another generation or two and people reading "1984" will wonder why Winston Smith just couldn't behave.

[The Libertarian Guy]

Orwell wound up writing an instruction manual, in the long run.

[cynical]

Wait, a totalitarian dystopia would let people read 1984?

[P Brooks]

He was also scheduled to address the 2010 New Hampshire Liberty Forum, a gathering of self-described "pro-liberty activists" who are striving to "cut the size and scope of government by about two-thirds or more."

OMFG!

He's an anarchist! Soon he will be beating up helpless women, just like those guys in New Orleans.

[Pro Libertate]

He probably had a hand in directing the hurricane.

[TrickyVic]

The tornado in MS was God punishing MS for electing Hood to the AG spot. 😉

[Pro Libertate]

Damn the Republicans and their insidious weather-controlling abilities!

[Tony]

He should go live in the Libertardian paradise of Somalia.

[heller]

Drink! Drink for fake trolls, not for mentioning of Somalia.

[Gene Berkman]

Someone who wants to cut government by 2/3 is not an anarchist. A big government libertarian, actually, given how big the remaining 1/3 would be.

[Hank]

Liberal/Progressive logic (for lack of a better word): The Judge is not a liberal. So, what does that leave? He's a right-wing apparatchik, hate mongering militant, corporate crony, Obama defiling racist, and libertarian facist. Clearly he does not support Hope and Change either.

[Babelicious Bertha Lewis]

"cut the size and scope of government by about two-thirds or more."

Oh my God. The depravity of the man, does it stop? Thank you, Jesus, the SPLC is on it, working some of the least cooperative and most outdated fax machines in America, God Bless 'em!

[Alan Vanneman]

The Southern Poverty Law Center folks are a solution looking for a problem that more or less disappeared twenty or thirty years ago. Still, if Judge Andrew Napolitano was willing to travel to Atlanta to appear on the same program as the head of the John Birch Society and the Alabama Supreme Court Justice who insisted on having the Ten Commandments engraved in granite in the courthouse, well, Andy must really like the sound of applause.

[Episiarch]

Hey Alan, how about reviewing To Kill a Mockingbird for us?

[BakedPenguin]

You know, I only recently found out that "Dill" was Truman Capote.

[robc]

So it was an autobiography?

[BakedPenguin]

Lee denied that, although many elements line up very closely with her life. Lee's mother was emotionally distant rather than being dead, her father was a lawyer who once defended blacks who were likely unfairly accused, although the circumstances were different.

Maybe it wasn't purely autobiographical, but Lee definitely "wrote what she knew about".

[Isaac Bartram]

There was some serious credence given to a rumor some years back that Truman Capote actuly wrote To Kill a Mocking Bird. I think it's been beieen pretty much dispatched by now though.

As long as there are english majors with time on their hands I suppose these disputes will occur over just about any notable writer at some time or other.

[Ernie the Bear]

How come none of these guys are ever fighting to get the B of R engraved in granite and installed in their courthouse? I'd be willing to have a $50/month payroll deduction set up to support that.

[Mike Laursen]

The Book of Revelations is kind of long to engrave on a granite slab. Maybe a summarized version.

[R C Dean]

The Southern Poverty Law Center folks are a solution looking for fundraising campaign flogging a a problem that more or less disappeared twenty or thirty years ago.

[Gene Berkman]

Drink!

[Jennifer]

I gather that some time ago the SPLC stopped drawing distinctions between, say, members of the revived Order trying to plot a countrywide bombing/murder spree, and the "White Power" groups consisting of three pissed-off 15-year-olds who meet in mom's basement after school to exchange racist jokes and bitch about people they don't like, and call themselves the "Valiant Kickass +17 Spell of Awesomeness Totally Cool Saviors of the White Race Who Never Have Trouble Getting Laid," and then the SPLC begs me for donations and tells me I'm supposed to be terrified because there's a VK+17SATCSWRWNHTGL chapter barely 250 miles away from where I live.

[P Brooks]

Like Wes Craven, the SPLC feeds off your innermost fears.

OOGA BOOGAAAAAHH!!

Send your contribution TODAY!
Tomorrow will be too late.

[Wylie]

Is Judge Napolitano a Hater? Panel of Haters to weigh in on the subject. Oh, its not hatin' if its haters youre hatin' on, nevermind then.

Freaknik needs to pay a visit to the Southern Poverty Law Center.

[Dagny T.]

Haters to the left.

Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

Haters gon' hate.

And other mid-2000's era hip hop-ish phrases.

[SugarFree]

Haters Gonna Hate

[P Brooks]

Don't hate the playa, hate the game.

Don't try to tell me whom to hate; I fucking hate that.

[Dagny T.]

Have it your way, P. I don't see what you have against beaches in Mexico, but hate all you want.

[Pro Libertate]

Playas are everywhere, not just in Mexico.

[Pro Libertate]

Not literally everywhere, of course. Just in most places where the ocean meets the coast.

[James Anderson Merritt]

I think I am going to ask Judge N where he finds immigration authority in the US Constitution, and why he thinks that the AZ law is unconstitutional. The latter may very well be true, but it will be interesting if that is declared so because of the supposed federal "primacy" in this area.

[cynical]

Not immigration per se, but Congress has the power "To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization"

It could, I suppose, be implied by the expiration of the limitation "The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person." Of course, that was really talking about slaves, but whatevs.

[Henry Butler]

The SPLC is a disgusting group that hires its own ambulance-chasing founders to pocket the majority of funds contributed by stupid Yankee liberals...some say they would be long gone if they had not cut a deal with the government to share whatever useless information they picked up during their three martini lunches on: the Klan (12 members left), the militias (anybody that owns a gun), and right wing extremists (anybody calling for Constitutional government).

[Thomas]

The SPLC is an alarmist organization who can't distinguish between actual terrorists and people who actually care about our country. Judge Napolitano rocks.