Shutting down people you don't agree with is about as un-American as you can get.

Rigorous debate, honest discussion, open exchange of ideas, that's the American way.

But free thinking and speech are threatened today by a group with a sweet-sounding name that conceals a nefarious purpose.

This group is called the Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC. Originally founded as a civil

rights law firm in 1971, the SPLC reinvented itself in the mid-80s as a political attack group.

Every year now, it produces a new list of people and charities it claims are extremists and haters.

Aided by glowing coverage from the establishment media, the SPLC's hate list has become a weapon for taking individuals and groups they disagree with and tarring them with ugly associations.

The SPLC employs a two-pronged strategy.

First, find a handful of crazies with barely any followers, no address,

and no staff, and blow them up into a dangerous movement, proof that there are neo-Nazis

lurking everywhere. On their notorious hate map, the SPLC lists 917 separate hate groups

in the U.S. No one has even heard of more than a handful of them.

The second strategy of the SPLC is to undermine legitimate political voices that they oppose

by associating them with extremists like the KKK. Take the charity known as the Alliance Defending

Freedom. The SPLC lists them as a hate group. Is that fair? Well, the ADF has a network of 3,000

attorneys from all across the U.S. who've donated more than a million volunteer hours in defense of religious liberty.

They've had a role in 49 victories at the U.S. Supreme Court.

Putting the Alliance defending freedom on a list with 130 Ku Klux Klan chapters is not only wrong, it's malicious.

According to the SPLC, one of the most influential social scientists in the U.S., Charles Murray, is a, quote, white nationalist.

Ayan Hersey Ali, perhaps the most eloquent spokesperson for the rights of Muslim women, is to the SPLC, a toxic anti-Muslim extremist.

Scores of other individuals and charities, active in mainstream conservative or religious causes,

have likewise been branded by the Southern Poverty Law Center as threats to society.

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