If The Southern Poverty Law Center Really Wants To Find Extremists It Is Looking In The Wrong Place - Try The Left

“In 2022, SPLC documented 1,225 hate and antigovernment extremist groups across the United States. Extremist ideas that mobilize these groups now operate more openly in the political mainstream. But the ascent of the hard right is not inevitable. We can push back against this rising authoritarianism and turn the tide.”

https://www.splcenter.org/states/pennsylvania

That’s how the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) begins its recent report which includes a map of the locations of “hate groups” around the United States. Many of those groups are located in my home state of Pennsylvania. Many of them are members of the Pennsylvania Patriot Coalition (PPC) of which I am President. It seems appropriate then that I should respond to this “report.”

Once upon a time when you wrote a work of fiction, you labeled it as such. Now, apparently, you call it a report and thereby hope to imply some sense of seriousness or factual underpinning. That does not change the fact that you are making things up.

I speak across the state of Pennsylvania continuously. I am in daily communication with Patriot group leaders in all corners of the Commonwealth. I have never heard of many of the groups on the SPLC’s “hate map.” If they exist at all they have virtually no membership and exert no influence. Are there three guys in a barn somewhere talking about a revolution? Maybe, but nobody is listening and nobody takes them seriously.

Some of the groups in the SPLC’s report I have heard of like the Oath Keepers. Do they exist? Yes. Do they represent the Patriot movement as a whole? No. That movement consists overwhelming of middle-aged Americans concerned about their country and seeking to regain control of the republic. They have the audacity to believe that government derives its power from the people and must answer to them.

Once upon a time we called that patriotism and celebrated it. Now, apparently, we call it extremism.

In all of the meetings I have attended statewide in Pennsylvania, I have never heard any discussion of violence. I have never heard anyone suggest anything other than lawful peaceful protest and involvement in the electoral process. Two chapters of Free PA are on the SPLC’s list of hate groups. That organization is part of the Coalition of which I am President. I have attended probably dozens of meetings of the various chapters in that organization, and I have appeared on the street with them on numerous occasions.

No one has engaged in violence. No one has advocated violence. On the contrary, the members of that organization, largely middle-aged mothers and grandmothers, have behaved with dignity and restraint.

As an example, I would sight a demonstration at which I was present in Hershey, Pennsylvania outside the office of a member of the Pennsylvania state legislature. Free PA was prominently represented amongst the demonstrators present on that day. No one advocated violence. No one broke the law. No one disturbed the peace.

I will note that the member of the legislature in question, Mr. Mehaffie, responded to this peaceful protest of his behavior in office by whistling up a group of some fifty Teamsters to stand outside his office, make obscene comments to the female demonstrators present and physically threaten male demonstrators. No one in Free PA or any of the other groups present responded in kind. The entire event, like every other such event I have ever attended, proceeded peacefully and without incident.

It has, in fact, been my experience over the course of years now that while citizens groups appear, express themselves peacefully, and exercise their First Amendment rights they are routinely threatened. I have also noted that with some frequency law enforcement and elected officials are acting to silence dissent.

Parents pointing out that masking of their children means those kids are breathing dangerous concentrations of harmful gases – a fact now scientifically proven – are removed from school board meetings.

Parents questioning whether masks even help stop the spread of disease are ejected despite the fact that all available evidence shows masking has virtually no benefit.

Parents protesting the pushing of experimental vaccines on their children are removed from the premises and their kids are suspended from school.

Citizens insisting that schools stop pushing transgender ideology or encouraging kids to hate others based on the color of their skin are literally banned from school property.

Lawyers representing clients challenging electoral results are sued and threatened with disbarment.

Candidates refusing to subscribe to the prescribed orthodoxy are in a multitude of ways shoved aside in the electoral process and silenced.

Individuals peacefully protesting the mass killing of unborn children are branded as extremists, arrested, and prosecuted.

It has been a tactic of the far left for a very long time to brand political opponents as extremists and make claims that they are advocating violence. It establishes the basis on which those opponents can be silenced and the powers of the state brought to bear to crush dissent. It was an old tactic when Stalin and Mao were using it. It is even older now.

There is no mass movement of violent right-wing extremists in Pennsylvania. There is no such movement anywhere in the United States. If the SPLC truly wants to dig into violence and extremism in America, I suggest it start with the people who burned our cities and attacked our police officers in the run-up to the 2020 election and continue to preach hate and violence as legitimate political tactics to this day.

If the SPLC really wants to find extremists, it is looking in the wrong place.