USA Today – by Jessica Prol Smith
I’ll never forget the moment I learned we were on lockdown. It was Aug.15, 2012. My frustration mingled with fear. Trapped on the sixth floor, we knew someone had been shot. We knew we couldn’t leave yet. We knew little else.
While I was missing lunch, a crime scene played out in the office lobby below me. My coworker and friend Leo wasn’t armed, but he had played the quick-thinking and inadvertent hero, disarming a young man on a mission to kill me and as many of my colleagues as possible. The gunman had packed his backpack with ammo and 15 Chick-fil-A sandwiches — later admitting that he had planned to smear them on our lifeless faces as a political statement. Leo took a bullet in the arm but managed to hold the attacker until law enforcement arrived.
I wrote and edited for the Family Research Council, a public advocacy organization that promoted the principles I have cared about since childhood: protecting the family, promoting the dignity of every human life and advocating for religious liberty. It reads like a tagline, but it’s also just what I believed and the way I chose to match my career with my convictions.
I never expected that everyone would celebrate or share my beliefs. But I did expect to be able to discuss and debate these differences without becoming a political target in an act of terrorism, the first conviction under Washington, D.C.’s 2002 Anti-Terrorism Act.
The Southern Poverty Law Center labeled us a ‘hate group’
It was the type of violent incident that one could expect a group that purportedly monitors “hate,” like the Southern Poverty Law Center, to notice, research and decry. In fact, we were on the center’s radar but for all the wrong reasons. The assailant acknowledged later in FBI testimony that he had selected our office precisely because the SPLC had labeled my employer a “hate group.”
It has always been easier to smear people rather than wrestle with their ideas. It’s a bully who calls names and spreads lies rather than thoroughly reading a brief’s legal arguments or challenging the rationale underlying a policy proposal. The SPLC has chosen to take the easy path — to intimidate and mislead for raw political power and financial benefit.
For years, former employees revealed, local journalists reported and commentatorshave lamented: The Southern Poverty Law Center is not what it claims to be. Not a pure-hearted, clear-headed legal advocate for the vulnerable, but rather an obscenely wealthy marketing scheme. For years, the left-wing interest group has used its “hate group” list to promote the fiction that violent neo-Nazis and Christian nonprofits peacefully promoting orthodox beliefs about marriage and sex are indistinguishable. Sometimes, it has apologized to public figures it has smeared, and it recently paid out millions to settle a threatened defamation lawsuit.
The SPLC has its own troubles
These shameful secrets are no longer hidden in shadows. The New York Times, Politico, NPR and a host of other mainstream publications are reporting on the corruption and widening credibility gap. The SPLC dismissed its co-founder in March, and its president has resigned amidst numerous claims of sexual harassment, gender discrimination and racism within the organization — a parade of disgraces that vividly force the conclusion: The SPLC is hollow, rotten and failing at the very virtues it pretends to celebrate.
The criticism comes from many corners. There’s theCurrent Affairs editor who seems sympathetic to the center’s progressive mission but decries its “hate group” list as an “outright fraud” and a “willful deception designed to scare older liberals into writing checks to the SPLC.”
There’s the retired investigative journalist who helped research and write an eight-part series on the center’s “litany of problems and questionable practices” in the mid-1990s. His Washington Post opinion piece reads with a thinly veiled message: We nearly got a Pulitzer Prize for TELLING YOU SO.
But perhaps most damning of all are the indictments leveled by former employee Bob Moser in The New Yorker. He remembers being welcomed to the “Poverty Palace” and recounts the heart-sinking reality of it all — being “pawns” in a “highly profitable scam.”
Jobs and years have passed, and I work now for Alliance Defending Freedom. ADF ranks among “the top performing firm(s)” litigating First Amendment cases, according to the Empirical SCOTUS blog, and is the “Christian legal powerhouse that keeps winning at the Supreme Court,” according to The Washington Post.
And yes, my new employer has also attracted one of the SPLC’s spurious hate labels. The label easily peels and fades away when one actually does the research and listens to truth before deciding to troll.
I won’t be intimidated by the SPLC
If the SPLC thought that its hate would intimidate or silence me and my colleagues, they’re sadly mistaken. I’m lucky — blessed, really — that I didn’t take a bullet for my beliefs back in 2012. But the center’s ugly slander and the gunman’s misguided attack have sharpened my resolve and deepened my faith in my Savior, who commands my destiny and shields me from the schemes of man. The same is true for my colleagues.
Fifty-one years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. fell to an assassin’s bullet. The SPLC pretends to carry his legacy but weaponizes hate labels instead. Unlike SPLC’s name-calling, Dr. King’s words and vision stand the test of time. “Injustice anywhere,” he warned, “is a threat to justice everywhere.”
The SPLC, as an institution, has thoroughly disqualified itself as an arbiter of justice. But this country would be a better place if the center’s donors, lawyers and friends would truly believe and apply Dr. King’s legacy — his peaceful pursuit of justice and his love of neighbor.
Jessica Prol Smith is senior news writer and editor for Alliance Defending Freedom.Follow her on Twitter: @JessicaProl
#1: Willie Green To: Deckard (#0)
Pot, kettle, black...
Flip side of the same coin & doesn't realize it...
Willie Green posted on 2019-08-19 12:04:12 Reply Private Reply
#2: BorisY To: Willie Green (#1)
EveryThing looks
Like
Open - shuT - close
shiny nail
ps
Willie closed coffin green
BorisY posted on 2019-08-19 16:09:44 Reply Private Reply
#3: Tooconservative To: Deckard (#0)
I didn't recall that chicken sandwiches were involved. I must not have paid attention at the time.
Pretty safe to post this here at LF. I don't think the SPLC will have any defenders posting here to defend them.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-19 20:25:33 Reply Private Reply
#4: Willie Green To: BorisY (#2)
Willie Green posted on 2019-08-20 08:57:48 Reply Private Reply
#5: Tooconservative To: BorisY, A K A Stone (#2)
Isn't it time you finally ban this useless piece of shit BorisY/byeltsin?
And you wonder why people don't want to join up at LF if you can't even banish someone like this who deliberately trashes your forum? Certainly, most people won't waste time signing up to be a member in equal standing to BorisY.
If he won't post in clear text like a normal person, you should ban him. You should have realized that a long time ago. BorisY is not disabled or a special ed student. He's just a freeper asshole who comes here to make you look like a fool. I don't see why you let him do that to your forum.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-20 10:12:32 Reply Private Reply
#6: sneakypete To: Deckard (#0)
Are there any criminal charges pending against him for stealing donations?
sneakypete posted on 2019-08-20 10:33:28 Reply Private Reply
#7: BorisY To: Tooconservative (#5)
BorisY posted on 2019-08-20 14:33:17 Reply Private Reply
#8: redleghunter To: Tooconservative (#5)
Didn't he used to post that purple clad klansman pick who were black?
redleghunter posted on 2019-08-20 15:03:06 Reply Private Reply
#9: BorisY To: redleghunter (#8)
The gender of indiscriminaTe
barn yard sex
Free
RecruiTing videos
In public parks
BorisY posted on 2019-08-20 15:15:13 Reply Private Reply
#10: Tooconservative To: redleghunter (#8)
Sounds right. I've kept him on bozo very steadily so I'm not sure.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-20 17:41:57 Reply Private Reply
#11: A K A Stone To: Tooconservative (#5)
Well I can't put it in words but he usually makes a point with his few key words.
A K A Stone posted on 2019-08-20 17:46:29 Reply Private Reply
#12: jeremiad To: Tooconservative (#5)
On another note, LF is superior to FR. I only wish some of the OG posters from FR early days would pop in and post. There were so many who were banned or faded away who were a wealth of information, and thoughtful opinions.
I guess what I mean is, I wish this place a growth in participation. I love it, and am thankful for it.
jeremiad posted on 2019-08-20 18:05:10 Reply Private Reply
#13: Tooconservative To: jeremiad (#12)
People are afraid if they come over here to post, they'll get banned back at FR. RimJob doesn't want anyone on his site who is disloyal to him.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-20 18:46:15 Reply Private Reply
#14: Gatlin To: A K A Stone, BorisY (#11)
Many of BorisY’s posts are anti-libertarian – such as the one in his Post 9 here. I find it quite appalling that a strong “free speech libertarian” is against Boris speaking out by objecting to the method Boris uses – but I can understand why he is. I don’t think it has anything to do with the manner which Boris chooses to express himself as much as it has to do with a “libertarian” wanting to decide what truth is.
You go Boris …
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-20 20:25:16 Reply Private Reply
#15: Gatlin To: jeremiad (#12)
Which of course is an intelligent method of dealing with the situation instead of whining to Stone to have him banned.
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-20 20:32:23 Reply Private Reply
#16: jeremiad To: Tooconservative (#13)
jeremiad posted on 2019-08-21 00:13:24 Reply Private Reply
#17: Tooconservative To: A K A Stone (#11)
You mean, like some amazing haiku? And what point was Boris making with "Willie closed coffin green"? Wasn't he just openly suggesting that he hoped Willie died a violent death or a death from which he had to be buried in a closed coffin? How else do you read the phrase "Willie closed coffin green"? Can you even explain to me what you think that phrase means? How is that post any kind of contribution to your forum? What was the "secret meaning" of that post? Just tell me that.
Maybe it doesn't matter.
I have begun to think that you only say that you want a larger forum with more members. I don't ever see you do a single thing or lift a finger to actually make that happen.
But, no, really...please do make it clear to the world that a babbling forum joker and an idiot like BorisY is the same in your eyes as your very best posters, like Vicomte or redleg, people who are thoughtful and give some time to to their posts, who have a lot to say. I'm not saying my posts deserve much consideration but you do still have a few posters here whose posts are the result of some thought from people with a wide variety of education and life experience, people with a real religious background and opinions that are thoughtful and who really work at constructing good posts here at LF. And you apparently think BorisY contributes exactly as much to your forum as they do. That's a real message you're sending to the forum. It's a wonder anyone ever wants to join. Not that I'm trying to scare off watchman, your first new member in...a while. And he is an interesting new member. He first posted (to a Willie Green thread on that self-styled missionary who got killed by that hostile primitive island Stone Age tribe that was by law off-limits to outsiders. Then watchman made ~10 posts until he started posting steady in June. Prior to watchman, your other most recent member is WWG1WWA who joined in March 2019 and has ~70 posts since then; his first post was on nolu's Yukon-wuz-hacked thread and mentions that WWG1WWA was a longtime LP member.
Some ignorant babbling haiku from BorisY is as good as anything else that ever gets posted on your forum, eh? That's a twisted fucking notion of free speech IMO. Not all speech is of equal value. And some speech doesn't merit any protection as free speech if no one can even agree on what it means.
I could do that sort of thing, just like freeper disruptor Boris does. I could VPN in to LF through Tor and you'd never know it was me. But I wouldn't do that because I would like a better forum, not a worse one. Just because Goldi let Boris trash her forum with his bullshit posts (almost certainly intended to harm your forum just like it harmed LP, not build it up as a place that people want to post) doesn't mean you are obligated to let him trash LF the way he trashed LP.
What message do you send to prospective members and to your current members when you apparently think that Boris Bullshit posts are as good as anything that anyone else posts? Hell, you don't even limit his posts. You haven't changed his handle online because you're throwing a petty fit over something they posted (like you've done to me and to others). You haven't limited his posts the way you just did to hondo68. You've had some forum members you've treated pretty badly but never precious fucking BorisY who does nothing but make you look like the captain of a ship of fools. And then you fucking defend his babble.
You're a dumbass for letting Boris do this to your forum for years. And that is my honest opinion.
Yeah, go ahead and ban me if you don't like what I wrote here. Seriously. If I'm no better for your forum than Boris, if redleg and Vicomte and misterwhite and Gatlin and GrandIsland (all posters willing to do research and really debate a topic with some passion and personality) and other better posters than me simply mean nothing more to you than freakin' babbling Boris, then banning me would be doing me a favor anyway.
Tell me something though. How do you know that BorisY isn't RimJob himself (or one of his tools), just coming over here to LF to make posts to make you look like a fool? We know for a fact that RimJob did go to Goldi's forum to post because he finally admitted to it and he wasn't there at LP to help her forum grow and gain new members. Exactly the opposite.
[I did mention a number of other posters in this post and didn't flag them since I'm not out to drag everyone into this.]
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-21 01:24:29 Reply Private Reply
#18: Tooconservative To: jeremiad (#16)
Not to mention the people who got martyred for making posts against open borders, a huge number of posters in an early major purge. Or supporting Romney in 2012 which led to the freeper Mormons getting banned en masse or just leaving while they still had some dignity. And the pogroms against anyone who posted anything about Ron Paul.
I'm surprised FR survived and held on to as many posters as it has, given how awful RimJob and his moderator crew really are. And he's a total political dumbass to boot. And somehow he appears to raise well over a million a year to run a chat channel for cat ladies who wore out vibrator after vibrator over those creepy Day In The Life photo threads of Bush Junior, sad as that is.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-21 01:40:07 Reply Private Reply
#19: WWG1WWA To: A K A Stone, BorisY (#11)
WWG1WWA posted on 2019-08-21 08:19:14 Reply Private Reply
#20: A K A Stone To: Tooconservative (#17)
I never read that one.
A K A Stone posted on 2019-08-21 08:29:26 Reply Private Reply
#21: A K A Stone To: Tooconservative (#17)
lol
A K A Stone posted on 2019-08-21 08:33:16 Reply Private Reply
#22: A K A Stone To: BorisY (#2)
What is that supposed to mean?
A K A Stone posted on 2019-08-21 08:37:56 Reply Private Reply
#23: Gatlin To: A K A Stone (#21)
hEr typical libertarian reActin
lIbErTaRiAnS R PeTuLaNt cHiLdReN
BeHaVe iRrItAbLy - cHiLdIsH WaYs
lIbErTaRiAnS C ThEmSeLvEs 2 b rAdIcAlS
MiSgUiDeD LiBeRtArIaNs dAnGeRoUs
… BeWaRe …
mAd cOw dIsEaSe tRaNsMiTtAbLe
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 08:40:19 Reply Private Reply
#24: Deckard To: Tooconservative, A K A Stone, Gatlin, Boris (#17)
Reading posts from Boris, I can imagine he's listening to this song on a continuous loop:
He may possibly be listening to the B-Side (which is the song played backwards) to come up with his psychotic posts.
(I didn't realize there was this version until today)
Deckard posted on 2019-08-21 08:48:33 Reply Private Reply
#25: Gatlin To: A K A Stone, BorisY (#22)
Let me state what I read it to mean.
“Willie is coffin closed green” means that “Willie is dead green” – he is firmly “being green” and will never change.
“Being green” is an adjective.
Definition: “If you say that someone is green, you mean that they have had very little experience of life or a particular job. He was a young fellow, very green, very immature.”
Right, Boris?
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 08:48:37 Reply Private Reply
#26: Gatlin To: Deckard (#24)
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 08:56:42 Reply Private Reply
#27: Deckard To: Gatlin (#26)
Deckard posted on 2019-08-21 08:57:48 Reply Private Reply
#28: Gatlin To: Deckard (#27)
You do NOT know what Boris listens to, Puke!!
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 08:59:07 Reply Private Reply
#29: Deckard To: Gatlin (#28)
From his posts, he's clearly insane which would make the songs I posted most likely to be on his limited playlist.
Or possibly, he's a Freeper Troll like TC suggested.
Either way, you sure seem to be going out of your way to defend that psycho.
Even going so far as to deny that he wished for Willie to die.
That was one remarkable spin job!
Deckard posted on 2019-08-21 09:07:07 Reply Private Reply
#30: Gatlin To: Deckard, BorisY (#29)
So, you d admit that you don't know - Good.
You do NOT know that is what he meant.Stop IMAGINING things and making shit up ...
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 09:11:53 Reply Private Reply
#31: Deckard To: Gatlin (#30)
Speculating - not imagining.
And with pretty good reason.
If he was a (gasp!) "libertarian" you'd be singing a different tune and not defending his death wishes for a fellow poster.
Deckard posted on 2019-08-21 09:14:48 Reply Private Reply
#32: Gatlin To: Deckard (#31)
It is as you say - speculating.
Can't you find something better to do ...
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 09:25:44 Reply Private Reply
#33: BorisY To: A K A Stone (#22)
No soul
Brainwashed
Nailed shuT
BorisY posted on 2019-08-21 15:20:41 Reply Private Reply
#34: Gatlin To: Deckard (#29)
No problem for me.
I will always go out of way to defend against any injustice.
I don’t know how I could ever do otherwise.
I personally would never live a life that is totally unjust.
You will need to tell me how you are able to do that when we have time.
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 17:00:37 Reply Private Reply
#35: nolu chan To: Gatlin, BorisY (#25)
I'll take a shot at this.
Boris meant Willie's arguments are dead and buried, and the coffin is nailed shut, or figuratively that Willie is dead and buried and the coffin is nailed shut.
At most, Boris' unique style is a minor irritant.
nolu chan posted on 2019-08-21 17:44:53 Reply Private Reply
#36: Tooconservative To: WWG1WWA (#19)
No, he doesn't. I don't think anyone can agree what his intended meanings are.
If you understand him so well, tell us what "Willie closed casket Green" meant in his earlier post. No doubt, you'll try to explain it away. Let's hear you try.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-21 17:58:47 Reply Private Reply
#37: BorisY To: nolu chan (#35)
On my ego
Is working
Very well now
Love
boris
Ps
The loons
On lp
Need To be
Dialysized
Blood leTTed
Transfused
Now
BorisY posted on 2019-08-21 18:01:30 Reply Private Reply
#38: Tooconservative To: Gatlin, Willie Green (#25)
I think we can all agree that Willie seems to be a 65+ senior living in Texas with a fondness for mass transit, especially trains. He believes in the economics of them. He would be right in Europe or along a few train corridors on the eastern seaboard. But otherwise, America prioritized freight railroads over passenger service. The EU and much of Asia did the opposite. But we need the freight system to transport things like grain and coal from our vast interior regions to coastal ports or power plants.
I think Boris was being deliberately cruel to Willie, suggesting he'd have to have a closed casket himself or that perhaps Willie had buried some loved one in a closed casket.
Should we all be allowed to sprinkle vague insulting suggestive posts about each other, the way that Boris just did to Willie? I say no.
And for it to be free speech, people have to understand the meaning of the speech being conveyed. Quite clearly, no one does agree what he means. So are we to conclude that free speech is the freedom to babble while including nasty remarks to a particular poster that seem very insulting?
Boris is a passive-aggressive asshole. Stop defending him. I still think he is a freeper who comes here to disrupt deliberately.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-21 18:06:12 Reply Private Reply
#39: Gatlin To: nolu chan (#35)
A couple of posters got their panties in a wad – obviously having a bad hair day.
I say – Let Boris be Boris …
I find his posting challenging – and there is no doubt that it is unique.
I have started to post to him in the same manner.
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 18:06:48 Reply Private Reply
#40: Tooconservative To: Deckard (#24)
Surely you are not taken in by his act.
He is perfectly capable of posting like a normal poster. He's slipped a number of times over the years and forgot himself.
Boris is not a stroke victim with aphasia. He's just an asshole and a disruptor. And that is his intent.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-21 18:14:51 Reply Private Reply
#41: Gatlin To: BorisY (#37)
NeVer WoRk
MiNdS UnCoNsCiOuS
MiNiMaL BrAiN AcTiViTy
sHoW No sIgNs oF AwArE.
ClOsEd eYeS = ClOsEd mInD.
Gatlin posted on 2019-08-21 18:15:31 Reply Private Reply
#42: Tooconservative To: Gatlin (#39)
Did Ayn Rand peg your scraggly ass back in the Fifties or something 'cause you sure have a raging hardon every time you talk about libertarians. You seem to have no problems with commies or radical Muslims or Antifa or anything else. Yet I don't think you have ever met one IRL. You display almost no indications that you have any knowledge of the depth and variety of libertarian thought over the last 50 years. There is a century of libertarian thought that you seem completely unaware of.
It isn't our fault that you don't know what libertarians think or debate.
Tooconservative posted on 2019-08-21 18:23:20 Reply Private Reply
#43: Willie Green To: Tooconservative, Gatlin, nolu chan, banjoboyboris (#38)
Well thank-you, I suppose...
But please let me assure you, there was no offense taken...
Trying to decipher banjo-boy's gibberish is an exercise in futility that I gave up on a long time ago...
Willie Green posted on 2019-08-21 20:26:15 Reply Private Reply
#44: BorisY To: All (#33)
Dead mind
No soul
Brainwashed
Nailed shuT
BorisY posted on 2021-05-20 17:23:48 Reply Private Reply