William Gheen, Americans for Legal Immigration PAC, August 5, 2009
A once revered civil rights group named the Southern Poverty Law Center has now become a threat to the freedoms and security of American citizens due to their repeated attacks on all First Amendment rights and their utter debasement of the political process.
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While in the past the SPLC has targeted “hate groups” or groups deemed racist and potentially violent, such as the KKK and Neo Nazi groups, the SPLC has recently used their reputation for fighting these groups to go after moderate and mainstream Americans, journalists, and show hosts and anchors in an attempt to suppress free speech.
The most recent attack from the SPLC on American freedoms has come in the public call for the firing of Lou Dobbs by SPLC President Richard Cohen.
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Lou Dobbs did not take a position on President Obama’s Constitutional eligibility to serve as President as a natural born citizens. Lou Dobbs simply said “President Obama needs to “produce a birth certificate”.
American citizens of all walks of life are regularly made to provide a copy of their original birth certificate for jobs, licenses, passports, and other documents. Therefore, it is completely reasonable that President Barrack Hussein Obama should do the same to quell the large cohort of citizens that have serious questions about his eligibility to serve in an arena where there should be no doubts!
God forbid that the Southern Poverty Law Center’s call for free speech and freedom of the press to be destroyed in one fell swoop succeed, but is not even their call for the destruction of these rights offense enough?
Surely there will be some far left open borders and amnesty enthusiasts, that represent less than twenty percent of the US Population on the political issues of illegal immigration, that will support the SPLC call for the firing of Dobbs because they feel they will benefit from this abridgment of Constitutional rights in America.
However, Lou Dobbs’s political views are more closely aligned with the vast majority of Americans who want America’s borders secured and our existing immigration laws enforced. An even larger majority of people will support Dobbs’s right to say what he likes and report what he likes as an American citizen and member of the media. Thankfully, many Americans still realize that free speech is a sacrosanct pillar of our nation’s political processes and once esteemed place in history.
Today, SPLC President Richard Cohen sent out another release claiming that Lou Dobbs has some association with James von Brunn, the neo-Nazi accused of killing the Holocaust Memorial Museum guard.
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Now things have taken a new turn with the SPLC asking even their left leaning supporters to come along with them on a direct attack on free speech and the freedom of the press in America in a move that is designed to try and limit the right to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
Most of us could understand and tolerate these groups and their spokespersons having different political views than us. I even fully support their free speech and right to engage in unpopular free speech supporting their positions in support for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens.
But by targeting moderate groups and commentators, smearing their names with false associations with murderous racists, and attempting to simultaneously interfere with Constitutionally protected freedoms of Americans, the SPLC has gone too far and has become a threat to the American rules, principles, ideals and freedoms necessary to allow peaceful political change and diffuse calls for violence from the extremes.
I personally feel that the actions of the SPLC are increasing the chances of political violence in America as this group is trying to silence free expression of concerns and redress of grievances of tens of millions of Americans. The Americans the SPLC is targeting are not some violent fringe group, they are heartland Americans of every race and political party that believe in the founding principles of the United States!
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Let us speak out with one voice against the SPLC and challenge the presence and messages of their spokespeople such as Richard Cohen, Morris Dees, Mark Potok, Heidi Beirich, and others when they are masquerading as a civil rights group before the media and lawmakers.
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[Editor’s Note: An earlier story about SPLC’s attempt to remove Lou Dobbs from the air can be read here.]
