Friday, March 09, 2012

The Pot Calling the Kettle White: The "Southern Poverty Law Center"'s bizarre report on "hate groups"

As if on que, journalists at The New York Times and NPR--and even Kentucky's own normally more discriminating Al Cross--began regurgitating claims about an "explosive growth" in hate groups across the country.

The New York Times story reports on the "Southern Poverty Law Center" (which we place in quotation marks to indicate that its title has little to do with being Southern, only the most vague relation to do with Poverty, only slightly more to do with Law, and having almost nothing Centrist about it, thanks to its left-wing political agenda), which puts out a report purporting to count the number of "hate groups" (which we place in quotation marks to indicate that the term has little to do with hate and a lot to do with disagreement with the group's actual left-wing political agenda).

Yes, the story indicates, we must deal with the grim truth is that there are groups out there who disagree with the "Southern Poverty Law Center"'s left-wing agenda.

Clearly it is time to begin storing canned food in the basement, making sure your weapons are in good operating condition, and verifying that you have plenty of ammunition to survive the coming Right Wing Apocalypse of people who disagree with the "Southern Poverty Law Center"'s left-wing political agenda.

Oh, and did we mention that "Southern Poverty Law Center" had a left-wing political agenda?

The "Southern Poverty Law Center"'s list of "hate groups" includes groups who support the 10th amendment and any group that has anything good to say about the South, including the League of the South, a group that promotes Southern culture and has absolutely nothing to do with hate or racism. A chapter listed in Kentucky doesn't appear to have any more than one member.

In fact, it's kind of funny, but when you follow the links from various left-wing blog posts about the League of the South, the only evidence that the group has any kind of hate agenda is ... because the "Southern Poverty Law Center" says so!

Where are the Daughters of the Confederacy on this list of "hate groups"?

In 2010 the "Southern Poverty Law Center" labeled the Family Research Council, a fairly mainstream social conservative group as a "hate group." The reason? FRC was opposed to same-sex marriage and gay rights.

Omigosh.

Curiously, FRC doesn't appear in the group's 2011 report. Has the "Southern Poverty Law Center" backed off? If so, why? Did the FRC changed its position? Or did the Southern Poverty Law Center realize how utterly bone-headed it was in doing it in the first place and realized it's claims were starting to look comical?

Times writer Kim Geverson, whose critical antennae appear to be nonexistent, reports that the number of "hate groups" "continues to grow" (a phrase we put in quotation marks to indicate not only that it is a quote, but that the acceptance of the fact the quote asserts is directly contingent on the acceptance of the "Southern Poverty Law Center"'s left-wing political agenda).

We also have to wonder whether the "Southern Poverty Law Center" is itself a White Supremacist group. As the group Watching the Watchdogs points out, the leadership of the group is exclusively white. If a group can be labaled a "hate group" for preaching white supremacy, why can't the "Southern Poverty Law Center" be labeled a "hate group" for actually practicing it?

10 comments:

KyCobb said...

Martin,

Have you even looked at the League of the South's website? Its not too hard to find the racism. It says that secession (which occurred to protect the institution of African slavery) was "clearly moral", and it has this gem: "floodtide immigration that is intended to replace the founding stock with a more pliable Third World population"

That's just from clicking on one article and reading for a couple of minutes.

Singring said...

Another rancid slavery apologetic from the Tennessee chapter (took me all of three minuts to find):

http://www.freetennessee.org/custpage.cfm/frm/56745/sec_id/56745

And how about this gobsmacking statement from an article called 'The South as it was' (http://www.freetennessee.org/custpage.cfm/frm/46580/sec_id/46580):

'It is almost impossible for us to envision the economic freedom that reigned in the Old South. From the individual's standpoint, there was near complete freedom of entry into every market. '

So I guess in the mind of the LotS either slaves were enjoying 'complete freedom of entry into every market' or they simply don't count?

How about this nugget:

'Slave housing was not crowded by standards of the time. On average there were 5.2 slaves per house on large plantations, compared to 5.3 persons per free household in 1860.

“[T]he ‘typical’ slave cabin of the late antebellum era probably contained more sleeping space per person than was available to most of New York City’s workers half a century later."'

And this is just what they publish online, right on teh main pages of their websites.

Are you seriously going to argue that this kind of organization does not qualify as a hate group, Martin?

Old Rebel said...

Singring,

I'm curious how discussing the facts of history constitutes "racism."
The quote you offer is from a cliometric study by Nobel Prize winning University of Chicago professor Robert Fogel and University of Rochester Stanley Engerman in their book, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery. Fogel and Engerman concluded that wage-slaves in Northern sweat shops were worse off than slaves in the South.

Are these professors guilty of racism because of their conculsions?

Old Rebel said...

KyCobb,

Slavery was legal in Colonial America. The Royalist government sponsored an "Ethiopian Regiment" for slaves who fought for the King, with the promise of emancipation once the rebels were subdued.

So you could argue the secession of the colonies was to preserve slavery.

KyCobb said...

Old Rebel,

"So you could argue the secession of the colonies was to preserve slavery."

One of the great tragedies of the American Revolution was that it did not live up to principles articulated in the Declaration of Independence. This ultimately lead to the great tragedy of the Civil War. However your attempt at moral equivalence between the Revolution and secession is false. The Northern colonies were clearly not separating from Britain to preserve slavery; whereas slavery was the primary, if not sole reason identified in the articles of secession passed by the seceding states for leaving the Union.

KyCobb said...

Old Rebel,

I'm curious how discussing the facts of history constitutes "racism."

The articles at the League of the South's website don't discuss the facts of history. They cherry pick anything they can find which presents slavery in the best possible light while focusing intense criticism on abolitionists and 20th century civil rights activism. Defending the morality of the South's 19th century slave economy in the 21st century is simply bizarre.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps Martin is only trying to be funny. Who can tell?

Old Rebel said...

KyCobb,

And yet those same Northeastern states not only practiced slavery for many decades after the Revolution, but conducted commerce with slaveholding states.

More significantly, they passed a Constitution that recognized and enforced it. Four of the first five US presidents were slaveholders.

It was a fact of history. To clarify the facts is not to approve or disapprove those facts.

Lee said...

I'm beginning to think we haven't really abolished slavery, we've just outsourced it.

Unless the Chinese have political rights I'm not aware of.

KyCobb said...

Old Rebel,

The League of the South doesn't clarify facts. It tries to paint a happy face on human slavery.