Using the SPLC and Private Corporations to Crack Down on “Hate”

We’ve reported numerous times in the past on the campaign by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) targeting “hate” groups in the USA, with an eye towards shutting them down. Even though the SPLC is a private organization, and absolutely opaque in its methodology, it is widely cited in the media and used by various governmental agencies at both federal and state levels.

The SPLC’s list of hate groups was prominently featured by CNN after the violence in Charlottesville, and various organizations are now feeling the heat as a result. Our D.C. correspondent Frontinus sends the following brief overview of what’s happening, including proposed action by Congress.

Using the SPLC and private corporations to crack down on “Hate”

By Frontinus

The efforts of the SPLC are bearing fruit inside the Beltway in the form of congressional action.

Note the resolution (JUST a resolution, unfunded, not a mandate but a legislature “marker”) S.Res. 118 that passed the Senate. A similar version was proposed in the House (House Resolution 257) requiring federal investigations of “hate incidents”, not just “hate crimes”. A small possibility does exist that it could pass even in the House, given the campaign being waged this summer (unlikely, but Republicans tend to be timid bunnies). There’s an article on it at Gatestone.

See also a real BILL (with House and Senate versions): HR1566 and S.662, which were reported to committee but not yet voted on; they’re not as likely to pass this session. This formulation is much stronger and more closely aligned with the SPLC/Google campaign. Quite operational in detail.

Keep an eye on this, or at least on its framing of the strategy. And combine these two (the Resolution, the Bill) to get a better idea of the two- to four-year plan to install a legal framework that would, in fact, implement UN Resolution16/18 in its most draconian interpretation.

The Charlottesville violence, as messaged by media and both Democrat and Republican leaders, will certainly help in herding a media/political consensus to pass either the Resolution or the Bill. President Trump will be pressured to sign the Bill if it passes — or if he doesn’t, he’ll be tarred as “pro-Nazi”, and candidates in 2018 will be tarred as white supremacists/pro-haters, etc. etc. etc.

One should see all these efforts as a systematic and integrated campaign. In addition to the Resolution and Bill outlined above, the campaign includes:

1.   The directed violence enabled by the Charlottesville and Virginia State Police and the ensuing planned media and political campaign accusing Trump and his supporters as Nazis (note that mainstream Republicans are part of this campaign, and almost no one in Congress is opposing it).
2.   Various SPLC efforts with Google and Guidestar, to use the SPLC list for discouraging donors (Guidestar) and lowering the search rankings (Google) for organizations;
3.   The SPLC effort with Google and ProPublica (and many others, including AJ+, Al Jazeera) on “hate incidents”, data-mining from anecdotal data (not just “hate crimes”);
4.   The SPLC effort with ProPublica to go after vendors (IT hosts, DNS, as well as transaction processing such as PayPal and credit card companies) doing business with SPLC-listed groups.
5.   Other stuff I’ve either forgotten or haven’t found. Readers should add more items to the campaign tactics list if they know of them.
 

This is a fight for territory in the information warfare battlespace. The Left understands they can’t win in the political battlespace in the USA, and they realize that his use of social media helped Trump in 2016. So the Left needs to control the information warfare battlespace, which is run by private companies — who can decide the applicability of terms of service in whatever manner they choose, under our First Amendment, to banish any organization or citizen from their companies on the internet.

It’s a smart plan. As usual, conservatives and libertarians still don’t know what’s hitting them, much less what lies ahead.

APPENDIX — The core text of HR1566:

A BILL

To provide incentives for hate crime reporting, grants for State-run hate crime hotlines, a Federal private right of action for victims of hate crimes, and additional penalties for individuals convicted under the Matthew Shephard [sic] and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1.

Short title

This Act may be cited as the “National Opposition to Hate, Assault, and Threats to Equality Act of 2017” or “NO HATE Act”.

SEC. 2.

Findings

Congress finds the following:

(1)   The incidence of violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim, known as hate crimes or crimes motivated by bias, poses a serious national problem.
(2)   Such violence disrupts the tranquility and safety of communities and is deeply divisive.
(3)   A prominent characteristic of a violent crime motivated by bias is that it not only devastates the actual victim and the family and friends of the victim, but also frequently ravages the community sharing the traits that caused the victim to be selected.
(4)   According to data obtained by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the incidence of such violence increased in 2015, the most recent year for which data is available, in comparison to prior years.
(5)   The Hate Crimes Statistics Act (Public Law 101—275; 28 U.S.C. 534 note) and the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act (division E of Public Law 111—84; 123 Stat. 2835) have enabled Federal authorities to understand and, where appropriate, investigate and prosecute hate crimes.
(6)   However, a complete understanding of the national problem posed by hate crimes is hindered by incomplete data from Federal, State, and local jurisdictions obtained through the Uniform Crime Reports program authorized under section 534 of title 28, United States Code, and administered by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
(7)   Increased implementation of the National Incident-Based Reporting System will enable the Federal Bureau of Investigation to obtain more detailed and accurate information on many crimes, including violence motivated by the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim.
(8)   State-run hotlines that direct victims or witnesses of hate crimes to law enforcement or local support services will allow State and local law enforcement agencies, as well as local community-based service providers, to understand hate crimes more fully and to act accordingly.
(9)   A Federal private right of action provides an additional option of recourse for individuals who are targeted for violence based on actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.
(10)   Many perpetrators of crimes motivated by bias may benefit from educational programming or volunteer service conducted in conjunction with, under the guidance of, or with the input of the community targeted by the hate crime.
(11)   Federal financial assistance with regard to certain violent crimes motivated by bias enables Federal, State, and local authorities to work together as partners in the investigation and prosecution of such crimes.
(12)   The problem of crimes motivated by bias is sufficiently serious, widespread, and interstate in nature as to warrant Federal financial assistance to States and local jurisdictions.
 

10 thoughts on “Using the SPLC and Private Corporations to Crack Down on “Hate”

  1. As to “SPLC and private corporate crackdowns on ‘Hate’ “…

    What would happen if the entire artificial construct (i.e., façade) of “hate speech”—as opposed to actionable verbal threats intending genuine harm or violence—suddenly disappeared from federal and state legal codes?

    Distasteful as it may seem, Americans have the absolute Constitutional right to be racist. Whether or not they are permitted to put those beliefs into practice within the public sphere (especially commercial enterprise) is another matter entirely.

    Even shouting “fire” in a crowded (but uncombusted) theater should not be probable cause for arrest. With that in mind, anyone who might have been injured as a direct result of such an act would be more than entitled to sue the everloving crap out of whichever individual was responsible for making that false and needlessly alarming exclamation.

    The SPLC—and SJWs (Social Justice Warriors) in general—rank as some of the strongest opponents of Free Speech to emerge in this new century. Only Communist China and Sweden (plus large portions of the EU) seem anywhere near as dedicated to restricting the public’s freedom of expression.

    Alexis Charles Henri Clérel, Viscount de Tocqueville—the French diplomat, political scientist, and historian—admired America’s newly-minted Constitutional rights. Despite the convoluted language of that time, his writings nonetheless illuminated one of the most central facts about how destructive it is to, in any way, curtail Freedom of Speech. From: Alexis de Tocqueville – Book 1 Chapter 11 — (an abridged excerpt)

    If anyone could point out an intermediate and yet a tenable position between the complete independence and the entire servitude of opinion, I should perhaps be inclined to adopt it, but the difficulty is to discover this intermediate position.

    [All] liberty of speech must therefore be destroyed as well as the liberty of the press. And now you have succeeded, everybody is reduced to silence. But your object was to repress the abuses of liberty, and you are brought to the feet of a despot. You have been led from the extreme of independence [of expression] to the extreme of servitude [i.e., oppression] without finding a single tenable position on the way at which you could stop.

    For the curious, an unabridged citation is available further down.

    De Tocqueville brilliantly notes how any attempt to constrain Free Speech can only, just as quickly, serve to strangle it. In fact, this is what we are seeing today. Social Media giants blunder about in ham-fisted attempts to remedy over a decade of their essentially tacit support (i.e., non-opposition) with respect to providing almost unrestricted online access for anti-Western jihadist elements.

    However, instead of any vigorous or laudable campaign to expunge all hyper-violent ISIS, al Qaeda, and Muslim Brotherhood propaganda (inter alios), these same Internet behemoths are playing patty-cake with SJW organizations that are far more fixated on restricting genuine Free Speech—especially that originating from Conservative political quarters—than concerning themselves with the Islamic threat.

    While it is not morally tenable to legally censor these intensely-biased organizations, there are no such curbs on censuring groups of this type that continue to erode American Constitutional rights. Petitioning to withhold any and all federal or state funding for them would be a great starting point.

    Placing these same concerns under the microscope in order to determine whether or not such “charities” are violating any of their legal obligations to scrupulously avoid political advocacy would be another important place to begin.

    It’s time to play hardball with these Alinsky–Gramsci cadres and make their lives miserable as can be. The same goes for pulling the plug on any subscription to, or participation with, Social Media. Please watch, “Degoogleing by Black Pigeon“. Yanking the financial rug out from beneath the feet of these hypocritical, pretentiously virtuous, money-grubbing, pro-Chinese-oppression collaborators is just one small facet of how to whiz in their collective Cheerios™.

    Contributions of any and all other suggestions regarding this strategy are strongly encouraged and gratefully accepted.

    NorseRadish

    PS: Many thanks to Frontinus.

    Full passage:

    If anyone could point out an intermediate and yet a tenable position between the complete independence and the entire servitude of opinion, I should perhaps be inclined to adopt it, but the difficulty is to discover this intermediate position. Intending to correct the licentiousness of the press and to restore the use of orderly language, you first try the offender by a jury; but if the jury acquits him, the opinion which was that of a single individual becomes the opinion of the whole country. Too much and too little has therefore been done; go farther, then. You bring the delinquent before permanent magistrates; but even here the cause must be heard before it can be decided; and the very principles which no book would have ventured to avow are blazoned forth in the pleadings, and what was obscurely hinted at in a single composition is thus repeated in a multitude of other publications. The language is only the expression and, if I may so speak, the body of the thought, but it is not the thought itself. Tribunals may condemn the body, but the sense, the spirit of the work is too subtle for their authority. Too much has still been done to recede, too little to attain your end; you must go still farther. Establish a censorship of the press. But the tongue of the public speaker will still make itself heard, and your purpose is not yet accomplished; you have only increased the mischief. Thought is not, like physical strength, dependent upon the number of its agents; nor can authors be counted like the troops that compose an army. On the contrary, the authority of a principle is often increased by the small number of men by whom it is expressed. The words of one strong-minded man addressed to the passions of a listening assembly have more power than the vociferations of a thousand orators; and if it be allowed to speak freely in any one public place, the consequence is the same as if free speaking was allowed in every village. The liberty of speech must therefore be destroyed as well as the liberty of the press. And now you have succeeded, everybody is reduced to silence. But your object was to repress the abuses of liberty, and you are brought to the feet of a despot. You have been led from the extreme of independence to the extreme of servitude without finding a single tenable position on the way at which you could stop.

    • I like what you say, although I have a few points of disagreement.

      I think it is perfectly reasonable to make criminal the yelling of “fire” gratuitously in a crowded theater. You can yell “fire” in the park all you want. Equivalently, the government can prevent a band from setting up shop on a crowded street and assaulting the eardrums of passers-by. Or prevent smoking in public places. All these things have adequate areas of expression in other places, and the government does have an interest in a decorous environment.

      I am uneasy at your advocacy of the use of withholding government funds to totalitarian groups. It’s all too easy to institute confiscatory taxation, and then return money only to favored groups. It’s a nice way of confiscating the property of unfavored groups. In fact, there are literally oceans of government money going to every study of left-handed flies imaginable. I don’t think the government ought to be in business of redistributing funds at all. This sounds like an extreme libertarian position, but actually is a rather direct derivation of the logic of your de Tocqueville quote.

      • I think it is perfectly reasonable to make criminal the yelling of “fire” gratuitously in a crowded theater.

        Welcome to Alexis de Tocqueville’s slippery slope. Your willingness to inhibit free expression has just made it equally difficult to shout many other supposedly-objectionable phrases in a wide variety of publicly attended venues. See, “trigger words”, and “hate speech”, plus words that rhyme with “trigger”.

        While I am grateful for your own apparently-sincere appreciation of my (perhaps) oddball conditions, there is ZERO wiggle room in these circumstances. In fact, this is the entire point of my post.

        All of us are currently confronted by unbelievably powerful corporations—with YUGE legal teams—that have no compunction about quashing our individual lawful rights like whatever pesky insects we may seem to be.

        I politely invite you to please prove how Tocqueville’s logical determination that Free Speech is either entirely FREE or NOT AT ALL reigns supreme. Should you be able to conclusively prove a valid alternative to this (admittedly) harsh set of options, please put them forward.

        Again, I relish your calm and direct challenge to my points. Thank you for taking up whatever dispute that they present.

        I would like nothing more than to establish a solid foundation which might create a new platform of ideas between us at this valuable website.

        All the best,

        NorseRadish

        • I fear you misread de Tocqueville.

          Reading the excerpt you provided, he focuses entirely on the objective of

          Intending to correct the licentiousness of the press and to restore the use of orderly language,

          ” if it be allowed to speak freely in any one public place”

          A movie theater is not a public place. It is a private place.

          de Tocqueville focuses entirely, totally, and correctly, in my opinion, on the futility of controlling the content of any message in order to promote order, decorousness, and absence of error. Physically endangering the public in a private place by what could be said in a public place or a private area under your control, is not promoting free speech at all.

          You wish a general rule and I’m not being paid to be a lawyer or logician. There is a story about the great logician, Godel, who, on applying for US citizenship, began pointing out the logical inconsistencies in the US Constitution to the immigration judge. Fortunately for him, and for us, he was being sponsored by Albert Einstein who was extremely famous and who stepped in and saved Godel’s bacon.

          But, the logician Wittgenstein (I’m sure Godel was well aware of it) proved that any complex system must contain inconsistencies. So, in human affairs, generally extremely complex, we have to live with some fuzziness and ambiguity. In practical terms, it’s not that difficult to distinguish yelling “fire” in someone elses theater, from someone writing an essay on the intolerant aspects of Islam.

          • Private domain implies the speaker has been invited and may be forced to leave, or be barred. The responsibility is on the owner of those rights. He can permit the presence of a speaker on condition of content, the speaker may speak against that and leave. This enforces the power of association.

            In public domain association is individual, the listener is free to ignore, but neither he nor the speaker can claim association by mere presence. In fact, if you remove public freedom of speech you automatically install an act of public association, and you automatically remove the right of a person to consider, ignore, or oppose.

            This is fascism, in its true meaning.

            I too am challenging the inconsistencies of a nationality law. The official reply has been to ignore me. As long as I am not silenced or set upon I am able to accept that, but I am learning that what many take for granted is poorly founded, often illusional. Those that know the illusions are in a position to manipulate the understanding of entire nations are able to tweak a law and have millions thoughtlessly accept.

            As has been written here, it is beyond the comprehension of most. Any sane person should be looking to minimalise law to basics, to reduce centralized influence.

            [NOTE: emphasis by Admin]

          • So, in truth, I’m not sure if you agree with my logic, disagree with it, or ignore it altogether.

            I am curious: does a city, township or state have the right to limit the blowing of a whistle, bell, or siren during the night (or day)? Does an amplified Islamic call to prayer at all hours constitute a right of free speech that leads to fascism if you limit it?

  2. This is obviously the real hook which will permit suits to be filed for expressions of opinion or uncomfortable facts.

    (9) A Federal private right of action provides an additional option of recourse for individuals who are targeted for violence based on actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.

    This is obviously the hook for criminalization of certain speech.

    additional penalties for individuals convicted under the Matthew Shephard [sic] and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

    What always blows my mind is how members of the dissident right, such as Mike Cernovich, Ramzpaul and Robert Spencer (not Richard Spencer) can look to government mandate to protect them from the arbitrary and reprehensible actions by organizations like Google, PayPal, Twitter, and Facebook. The government is the oppressor. The thrust of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution was to protect the citizenry from the arbitrary actions of an all-powerful government. What these dissident right wingers (I am one) are advocating is to increase the power of government to regulate tools of communication and open the door further to control of content.

    If I were a fascist leftist who had any logic capacity left, I would say “Yes, by all means. I support your attempt to have federal regulatory agencies nationalize large communication and service networks like Google, Facebook and PayPal. I totally support your attempt to have the government intervene and tell these nationalized private companies they have no right to control the message they send out.”

    As the Nazi youth sings in “Cabaret”, “Tomorrow belongs to me”. Once the principle of federal control of communication companies and information content is established, how long will it take for the communist-riddled government agencies to truly put a lid on free discussion, once and for all, with criminal penalties, and no right of appeal?

    The fact is, every impediment the government places on corporate operations increases the average size of the service providers: affirmative action, employee rights, environmental regulations, permits, certifications, and licensing, all increase the cost of entry and operation. The big companies use these devices to keep out shoestring competitors and fully support the entire regulatory burden. I think there is good reason to think a primary motivation in Google to fire James Damore was that Google was already facing federal discrimination lawsuits and could 100% expect female employees to file hostile-workplace lawsuits if Damore continued to be employed.

    So, it’s bloody inconvenient when PayPal or Google denies you service or doctors up their search algorithms, or place you on suspension. But, they are oligopolies, not monopolies, alternatives are available, and hopefully the pioneering companies will lose market share dramatically as the market matures.

    The proper way to use government is to work on eliminating the barriers to entry and operations, and get the government out of the business of being gatekeepers to keep out competition. This is not only consistent with the Constitution, but probably mandated by the Constitution. The Supreme Court of the early FDR period had it right: the socialist regulatory agencies were, in fact, confiscating private property. The real cause of the Great Depression, as has been established, was the constant deflation consciously caused by the Federal Reserve, a private corporation with the power of the government behind it.

  3. I am not a lawyer (not even playing one on tv), but should not be minimal requirement to companies operating in the soil of a nation (USA in this case), must be comply with the laws of the land, in this case the Constitution first amendment. If they have the right to deny free speech on the basis of being private, would that not give them the right to ignore other laws, like killing people, slavery etc… But if they must obey the law, then they should be punished by the state not obeying the requirements for free speech. Punishment could be fines, or even breaking up the company and imprison its owners.

    • They don’t have the “right” to deny free speech, but they do have the money and power to make the radical Left bend to their will and the latter will make life brutal for anyone who dissents from their view. Dissent scares the bejeezus out of totalitarians, as you know.

      It always depends on who owns – steals – the megaphone. In this case, it is the power of Goolag and Zuckerberg, the dangerous boy in the t-shirt. Lord, I surely do wish he’d dress like a grown-up.

    • The text of the First Amendment:

      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

      If you’re not Congress, then you cannot go against the First Amendment.

      There is no requirement by private citizens to let anybody say anything on their property. For example, Dymphna and Baron often censor language they don’t like. Is this a violation of the right to free speech?

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