Government visits are a good reason to practice defensive journalism

Cover of the Southern Poverty Law Center 'Intel Report' for 2009. The report broadens the vast right-wing conspiracy by lumping all conservatives together in a fictional "patriot" movement, alleging coalescence. [Screen capture from SPLC website.]I admit when I see government agencies on my website, readily identifiable by both domain name and IP number, it gives me pause. One example was the story I did on social security awhile back. Hundreds of readers from the agency came to my pages. There’s nothing like critting the agency holding all the keys to your identity.

Military entities, law enforcement and—worst of all—large trial lawyer groups spend time here. I practice defensive journalism, by the way, with an eye on survival during these times.

I had an ‘aha!’ moment on Sunday as I fact-checked Associate Editor Chris Carter’s article about the Southern Poverty Law Center. This influential center has made history, by setting right a number of wrongs. But as Main Streeters of all races co-exist fairly peacefully, if you discount gangs and domestic abuse, social justice organizations are having to become more creative to justify their existence.

After all, black people and white people and brown people go to movies together, eat together, worship together and do just about everything else together. We don’t routinely kill one another because of a perceived physical or political difference. There's a big disconnect in how we Main Streeters view each other and how the political class thinks we view each other.

Listed as spillers of “antigovernment rhetoric” into the “mainstream” on the SPLC website were people like Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Fox News is listed. Red State’s Erick Erickson is listed—I sent a general email to let Red State know about the distinction just in case no one else had congratulated him yet. Rep. Michelle Bachman (R-Minn.) is listed.

SPLC accuses these conservatives and a number of others of “white-hot antigovernment rhetoric…”

There’s one passage in the ‘intel report’ that is almost laughable—further demonization of seniors who decided to voice concerns about various federal issues: “Patriot ideology also has crept into the anti-tax ‘tea parties’ that were staged by conservatives around the country in April and July. In addition to protesting government spending and taxation, some demonstrators called for the sovereignty of the states, abolition of the Federal Reserve (a long-time bogeyman of the radical right), and an end to "socialism" in Washington. At the Jacksonville, Fla., July tea party, some protesters carried signs that compared President Obama to Adolf Hitler.”

A careful read of the ‘tea parties’ passage gives an idea of the left-nits' obsession with anyone daring to disagree with Washington at the moment. We go from tea party protesters to Hitler. That was a stretch. 

By the way, there are photos of the Jax tea party on Facebook. If there were any, Hitler posters were not the standard. Leftwingers compared the last Republican president to every known vile creature. So it seems to me the one group of nuts balances out the other.

Nowhere on the SPLC website is there any concern that gang members are killing innocents, not only in Chicago but in other cities as well. A moderate number of those killings likely occur because a teen has the nerve to refuse to join a gang, or perhaps a young girl offends by wearing the wrong colors simply because she had no idea some colors were illegal. A young man was beaten to death last week, by a group of alleged gang members, one wielding a plank. Nowhere on the SPLC website is acknowledgement that often crime is perpetrated by a minority against a refugee who is a minority. This is a problem in Jacksonville and I suspect elsewhere. Branded national media is silent. Is this not social injustice? Is this not a deprivation of the civil rights of all who are vulnerable and living in economically depressed areas? Those gangs are not a result of racial prejudice, by the way. They’re a result of greed for power and money, two of the oldest motivators of mankind.

On the SPLC website, the intel report cover graphic is arresting. The photo is very well-positioned—the armed militia man on the cover is headed straight for the reader, and it’s a given that some readers will think Militia Guy is probably Southern, white, ex-military or law enforcement, and ready to seize the government. The report and photo are probably some of the best paranoid propaganda I have encountered. I find no comfort in the possibility this organization may influence law enforcement, diverting resources from critical areas to track down tea party protesters.

These are not good times for conservatives—we haven’t had a good spell for a very long time if we’re honest with ourselves. A true conservative can never be glad to see government expand. That goes against the grain of conservatism—it is in my opinion the essence of conservatism. For government growth if unchecked decreases personal assets such as money and freedom.  At the moment government is expanding to historic levels and the 40 percent of us who pay the country's taxes will be required to fund it.

I plan to keep writing about it.

Thus I welcome government agencies as well as Mr. Main Street and Tommy the college kid and even Google, who also seems to visit here pretty frequently—I’d even welcome my neighbor’s highly annoying barking dog to this site.

This is America. It’s a good thing to remind ourselves at times.

Update on Monday, September 28, 2009 at 4:58PM by Kay B. Day, Editor

Drumroll: Today the 'Executive Office of the President USA' paid us a visit. We are honored and hope you enjoyed what you read.