Next on the Agenda: The Threat of Steve Earle Records

In which the Southern Poverty Law Center finds it difficult to distinguish the election of Scott Brown from an armed insurrection.

(Hat tip: Bryan Alexander. Title explained here. More on Steve Earle here. More on the SPLC here. More on this sort of paranoia here.)

Comments

[John]

The Southern Poverty Law Center is about ending the poverty of their directors. It is getting increasingly difficult to scare liberals into giving them money. They are just trying to make a living. No different than the woman who stands out at the entrance to the freeway for years with a sign saying "Pregnant and Hungry". No sane person takes these people seriously.

[?]

This is a political blog. We have to take everything seriously. Even the unserious things. You would have us on the streets, John, holding up signs that read WILL COMMENT FOR FOOD.

[T]

Wait, we can get food for comments?

[fresnodan]

how many comments for a cheeseburger?
Does it have to be profound for sushi?

[SugarFree]

The SPLC connecting the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Tea Party is particularly odious.

[Jennifer]

Especially considering it's based on the same twisted collective-guilt logic racists use to "prove" theses like "All Jews are greedy" or "All blacks are criminals": One member of the group committed Nasty Action X, ergo all members of the group are prone to such nasty actions.

[Hugh Akston]

I wonder what they have to say about Muslims.

[Ben]

Muslims are a protected political class according to the SPLC and most mainstream jounalists. No matter how hard it is to find these "peaceful, moderate" Muslims who denounce these so-called Radical Muslims (who continue to do a good job of convincing a lot of people they represent the mainstream of Islam), they can never be considered a dangerous threat because they are neither white, Christian are associated with the political right.

[SugarFree]

Check out the timeline, it contains such gems as:

March 2010: A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll finds that 56% of Americans believe the federal government is "so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens." In 1995, just days after the Oklahoma City bombing, a USA Today poll found that 39% of Americans then agreed with the same statement.

OMG!

[Brett L]

See, those tea-partiers are just one step away from bombing government-funded daycares like the one in the OKC Federal building.

[JD]

So more than half of all Americans are racist rat-bagging teafuckers?

[DADIODADDY]

mice, I only fuck mice.

[Episiarch]

It's been said that Kentuckians are southerners. And have a lot of poverty. And need a law center. Oh, and that you are hella racists.

[SIV]

It's been said that Kentuckians are southerners.

Incorrectly.
They thought about it briefly and Lincoln arrested their whole state legislature.

[SugarFree]

The cruel irony is that Kentucky only became dominantly Confederate after the Civil War was over. This explains a lot about what's wrong with this place.

[SIV]

I was wrong about the state legislature. They did maintain a separate provisional confederate government in exile

[fresnodan]

you wonder if the SPLC, which apparently believes all gubermint power is good, thought interring the Japanese was a proper use of gubermint authority.

[Tim]

I'm your Boogeyman, that's I am...

[hmm]

A racist under every rock is good for business.

[GoNavy]

Just how many people is the SPLC? Is SPLC not just a single lawyer with a fax machine that has found a way to make a living without chasing ambulances?

[DJF]

No, they have a big fancy headquarters building filled with lawyers with access to not only fax machines but also telephones and the internet. And yes this does allow them to make a very good living without chasing ambulances.

[The Gobbler]

Poverty law? Is that a sub-set of the law like tax law? Do they teach poverty law at Harvard? Is there any money in that?

[Jennifer]

When Obama was elected I spent some time lurking on white-supremacist sites to enjoy their emotional meltdown, and I remember one utter lunatic -- I'm pretty sure he was Christian Identity, that bizarre cult teaching Jesus died only for the sins of white folk, because non-whites have no souls -- and said lunatic swore he was going to bring a lawsuit to the Supreme Court, on the grounds that having a black man serve as president over him violates his religious freedom.

The modern SPLC reminds me a bit of that -- "If someone I dislike is elected to political office, that means my rights have been violated!"

I think the SPLC used to be a useful organization, but now they're just a solution in search of a problem, refusing to distinguish between "racist terrorists plotting armed insurrection" and "three pissed-off teenagers 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 Chicks Dig Us,'" and according to SPLC mailings I'm supposed to freak out because there's a VK+17SATCSWRCDU chapter less than 250 miles from me.

[Tim]

Switch to decaff.

[John]

You are not just supposed to freak out Jennifer. You are supposed to send them a check so they can protect freedom and the American way.

[SPLC]

Get your facts straight:

First, VK+17SATCSWRCDU grew so fast that we lost count of the membership after they got their second member. Then someone quit.

They also tell homophobic jokes and have access to radioactive material. And by radioactive, we mean an old glow-in-the-dark watch.

[John]

And had one of their moms not failed to pay the cable bill depriving them of internet access, they would have been able to set up a hate speech website.

[MP]

Sometimes those three pissed-off teenagers really are murdering psychopaths. I'm just sayin'...

[Jennifer]

Indeed, but they're rare. And if you're trying to find a needle in a haystack, adding more hay to the pile won't make the job any easier. If not for staff shortages, the SPLC would probably maintain a database of every American who dares laugh at comedians who tell "White guys walk like this, but black guys walk like THIS" jokes.

[Paul Krugman's Failed Memory]

Nope, all that's required is criticism of a sitting Democratic president.

[Almanian]

You know who else turned a group of teenagers into murdering psychopaths...

[Some Guy]

Marilyn Manson?
Ozzy Osbourne?
Donnie and Marie Osmond?

[alan]

Donny just had to drink that milk out of a dirty glass on his 70's era variety show. I have been a bad boy ever since.

[fresnodan]

lol
You forgot to add that they are clandestine, as they appear nice when the leader's mom brings down rice krispies treats, which makes them NEFARIOUS

[Rich]

Why is there no *Northern* Poverty Law Center? Seems kinda racist if you ask me.

[Brett L]

There's no poverty in the North. Not in Detroit or Chicago or Cleveland or Philly... and certainly not in the Enlightened Soviet of Taxachussetts.

[Tim]

By "north" you don't mean Canada?

[Brett L]

There's no poverty in Canada either. Its a socialist/communitarian paradise with an occasional regional infestation of supposedly francophonic malcontents.

[Almanian]

Regionalists!

[:p]

Same reason there is no Caucasoid Caucuses. Because it would be racist! There's only poverty in the south because of the racism of white people. Duh!

[Tim]

UP next: Facebook scare stories

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2369029,00.asp

[R C Dean]

the federal government is "so large and powerful that it poses an immediate threat to the rights and freedoms of ordinary citizens."

Isn't this pretty self-evident? I think its sad that only 56% of Americans agree with it.

[GoNavy]

Isn't something like 43 to 47% that do not pay any federal income tax?

Correlation?
Cause?

[TrickyVic]

The other 44% think a large and powerful government is necessary to provided them service. Sound about right?

[libertreee]

This "civil Rights" organization works with the venomous anti-Patriot web sight QUATLOOS to plant cookies on the browsers of those who go there to debate the income tax issue.
Since QUATLOOS is almost certainly government subsidized, seeing how their contributors have the time to spend thousands of hours editing Wikileaks with pro income tax propaganda, and erasing the opinions of those who find issues with the tax, this is troubling indeed. The Quatloos folks are hard core, their speech is far more hateful than anything coming out of the Tea Party, and they are comprised of exmilitary and intelligence operatives. Putting cookies on visitors browsers for tracking purposes is not something the typical civil rights organization would do.

[P Brooks]

Sometimes those three pissed-off teenagers really are murdering psychopaths.

And we should muzzle and persecute every pissed off kid everywhere, just in case.

Congress shall make no law...

[Gilbert Martin]

I wonder how much actual crime/violence has been perpetrated by all these "racist groups" that the SPLC constantly hyperventilates about vs the violence perpetrated gangs like the Cripps. Bloods, MS-13, etc. etc.

If their real concern is what poses the most danger to the population, it seems to me that they would be focusing on the latter type groups.

Of course if their objective is to get rich liberals to send them checks by telling them stuff that they like to hear to make themselves feel superior and give them an 'expert" source producing "studies" to rationalize their opinions, that's a whole different ballgame.

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

Of course if their objective is to get rich liberals to send them checks by telling them stuff that they like to hear to make themselves feel superior and give them an 'expert" source producing "studies" to rationalize their opinions, that's a whole different ballgame.

I think you've pegged them right. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard some news reader on CNN, NBC, etc. cite the SPLC as the "source" of the "facts" in their story.

[ChrisO]

It's a pretty good racket they've got going there. L. Ron Hubbard would approve.

[Richard Keefe]

The thing that is most hypocritical about the SPLC is that, despite being located LITERALLY in the back yard of Martin Luther King's home church, NOT ONE of the SPLC's top ten, highest paid executives is a minority.

http://wp.me/pCLYZ-67

According to the SPLC's hometown newspaper, the Montgomery Advertiser, the SPLC has NEVER hired a person of color to a highly paid position of power.