The SPLC has been criticized for using hyperbole and overstating the prevalence of hate groups to raise large amounts of money. In a 2000 Harper's Magazine magazine article, Ken Silverstein said that Dees has kept the SPLC focused on fighting anti-minority groups like the KKK, whose membership has declined to just 2,000, instead of on issues like homelessness, mostly because of the former issue makes for more lucrative fundraising. The article also claimed that the SPLC "spends twice as much on fund-raising--$5.76 million last year--as it does on legal services for victims of civil rights abuses." Harper's also pointed out that more than 95% of hate crimes are committed by lone wolves without any connection to militia groups the SPLC speaks . In other words, if the SPLC doesn't find a hate group under every rock, it will start to loose funding. wikipedia
The SPLS has also become a darling of the left, using the tactic embraced by liberals of attacking a group that has a political view different from theirs by declaring they are racists (always without any proof what so ever). There has never been any validity to any of these claims as most of the conservatives groups mentioned (and many more than exist in the US) have never been associated with violence of any kind and have bee self policing to remove any fringe elements. As a matter of fact, it is the liberal groups that have latched onto violence and intimidation to try and extinguish any dissenting voices. The SPLS has joined the left claiming any group the opposes a against a strong central government and the destruction of privacy rights, or advocates for nation sovereignty or the individual rights articulated in the US Constitution as terrorists and racists and is decidedly anti-Christian.
"one visualizes a bunch of overweight senior citizens in colonial costumes setting off red, white and blue suicide bombs and yelling "Git-r-done!".
Imagine if you will a Saturday Night Live parody of MSNBC, were Southern Poverty Law Center’s Mark Potok is interviewed by MSNBC in an attempt to somehow prove the their initial claims that the Boston Marathon bombings was the result of right wing extremists; in this case Extreme Libertarian group (an imaginary extremist group manufactured by the SPLC). When it turned out that Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were actually extreme Islamic terrorists associated with the ultra violent Chechnya rebels. But not to be deterred MSNBC and the SPLC laughably uses the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon to somehow connect the Tsarnaev's with their Extreme Libertarian group (the SPLC created this imaginary group as they pondered a race war in the US where a violent out growth of the Tea Party links up with al Queda at the Mexican border and reeks havoc; one visualizes a bunch of overweight senior citizens in colonial costumes setting off red, white and blue suicide bombs and yelling "Git-r-done!". So, in amongst the jihad/terrorists/anti-Semitic they found Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a “fan” conspiracy theorists of Alex Jones and somehow theorized Jones as simultaneously extreme right wing, extreme libertarian and racists.The real comedy here is this was no parody. Mark Potok then interjects his revisionist history (a very common tactic of the left) trying to blame the current patriot movement and Tea Party on the election of our first black President so they can label them racists. This completely ignores the patriot movement that intensified under the Clinton administration that was primarily a reaction to the Federal Assault Weapons ban; this Janet Reno/Federal attack on the 2nd Amendment resulted in the atrocities at Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma City bombing. You also have the the beginnings of the Tea Party protesting federal spending deficits and tax increases in the 1990's and by 2001 Tea Party tax protestors were sending tea bags to their representatives on April 15. It is generally accepted that rather than a reaction to a black president, it was the bailouts of banks by the Bush and Obama administrations that triggered the Tea Party's rise in 2008, with the overriding issue of Washington tuning out the voices of the common citizen.
MSNBC Parodies Itself
Perhaps the summer lull is to blame for Now’s decision to broadcast a segment about racial animus motivating the American right in for umpteenth time. Perhaps it is a psychological compulsion. No matter. To summarize the predictable segment below, Potok alleged that the Tsarnaevs were motivated to their bloody act of terrorism by Jones’ unhinged rants. This led the panel to decry the rise of racism in America which has followed the political ascension of President Barack Obama.
So there you have it. There is a reason why many have decried the SPLC as a hate group itself The Southern Poverty Law Center Law Center is a Hate Group
It has gone beyond it's stated purpose " a nonprofit civil rights organization dedicated to fighting hate and bigotry, and to seeking justice for the most vulnerable members of society", and has now declared itself the morale compass of America, who's sole purpose seems to demonize the US Bill of Rights and any organization that believes in patriotism, asserts their freedoms derived from the US Constitution/Bill of Rights and or opposes their worldview that the populace needs to relinquish all individual rights and national sovereignty in the name of forced equality and social justice.
