Analysis of Nativists To "Patriots"

If anything you can expect consistency from the SPLC. In this portion of the report David Holthouse attempts to defame the Minutemen and link them to militia groups and an off-her-rocker woman named Shawna Forde.

If you are not familiar with Shawna Forde, she was an outcast from the Minutemen who once claimed to represent the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) and also claimed to be a leader of a Minuteman group. In all cases, she lied. Then a bizarre set of incidents occurred around this now quite obviously insane woman.

First, her estranged husband was shot in his home.

Second, a week after the shooting of her husband, she claimed she was beaten and raped and had the words MS-13 burned into her face in a home invasion.

Third, Shawna was found in an alley where witnesses said they heard a blood curdling scream in an alley and a shot. Forde was found there with a bullet wound in her arm claiming she was attacked.

Those in the Minuteman movement and across the immigration enforcement movement had their doubts about Forde from the get go. They debunked the photos of the MS-13 burned into her face. Nobody in the movement associated with Forde.

In the end, Forde decided to go and attack an alleged drug dealer in his home and killed two people. She was arrested for murder.

However, that is not the story you hear from the SPLC and Holthouse. They insist that Shawna Forde was your typical Minuteman and that she was the national leader of a Minuteman organization. They also say that she was accepted by others in the immigration enforcement movement.

I'd just like to say for the record that the Minutemen do not represent everyone in this country who wants immigration enforcement. That is all you will hear about from Holthouse is that the enforcement movement is only the Minutemen. He doesn't mention any other groups in this report, which is telling. The SPLC and Holthouse have an agenda against the Minutemen and that's why there is such focus on them.

Holthouse tries hard to make the Minutemen as hateful looking as possible, but it simply doesn't wash. Anyone can see clearly through his ways of trying to attach the group to ideas that are way out there.

Starting with his opening paragraph he describes their "Camp Vigilance" as a "sizable Minuteman border vigilante compound". This wordage of vigilante has been used to denounce the group since it's inception as outlaws.

He continues describing the Minutemen with the following statements "a gated and well-guarded security perimeter." and "a dozen or so Minutemen are checking their weapons, testing batteries in their nightvision goggles and thermal-vision scopes, donning body armor and making other preparations for sundown-to-sunup reconnaissance patrols"

Clearly, by his wordage, he is trying to make a group that walks along the Mexican border - where violence has been skyrocketing and where cartels have no issue with shooting and beheading people - out to be some sort of armed militia. I'd like to see Mr. Holthouse patrol the southern border night after night without proper gear to defend himself. Somehow I doubt he'd go for it, he's a little too soft.

He portrays the group as anti-government rather than concerned citizens and says that the group is no longer concerned with border security or "undocumented immigration" (pfft it's illegal immigration, not undocumented immigration), but is more into "conspiracy theories and right-wing antigovernment militancy." He refers to their beliefs as a "nativist vigilante subculture" and says that "Minuteman organizations appear to be morphing into a new paramilitary wing of the resurgent anti-government Patriot' movement."

If you can believe it, Holthouse tries to pretend that he was actually not concerned with the Minutemen initially but that they have become radical "since its early days of media-friendly publicity stunts involving retirees sitting in lawn chairs armed only with binoculars".

Don't let this pro-illegal alien schmuck fool you though. People like Holthouse tried to depict the Minuteman as "paramilitary" and hateful vigilante racists from the very start.

Now that Jim Gilchrist - one of the original founders of the Minutemen - has been working more and more with pro illegal alien groups because of a falling out - and disgrace - from the rest of the immigration enforcement movement, all of a sudden the SPLC has yearnings for "the good old days".

Holthouse continues trying to denigrate the group by making them into a hardcore militia that believes in such far out theories "involv[ing] a cult devoted to the Egyptian god of the afterlife, Osiris, operating within the NASA space agency and perhaps arranging with extraterrestrials for a hostile takeover of Earth." WTF?

Maybe someone was talking about something like that because it's "out there" and "weird", but Holthouse is attributing it to the whole of the Minuteman movement as a theory they believe in.

He mentions talk of Aztlan, Reconquista, and the North American Union within the Minutemen.

I would just like to point out that Aztlan is stated in the founding documents of MeCHA as their goal, the reconquest of the Southwest. However Holthouse tries to portray that the fact the Minutemen talk of it as a real idea presented by the racists at MeCHA, that somehow they all believe it is Mexican government backed. In other words he is trying to obscure in order to discredit it.

He also tries to attach so called "birthers" to the Minutemen. Did you know that Minutemen believe the banking system is controlled by the "Illuminati"? That's what Holthouse says, so it must be true.

A few Minutemen have mentioned "sovereign citizens", this is proof that they are domestic terrorists, or so Holthouse implies.

Holthouse states: "Minuteman factions have begun promoting the ideology of so-called "sovereign citizens," ... The most notorious advocates of sovereign citizens' ideology include Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols and members of the now defunct Montana Freemen, a violent militia outfit."

That's like saying that because Mickey Mouse and Shrek were both animated that they have the same dances. It's asinine and just more reaching to discredit.

He says that the Forde incident shows that there is "contemplated violence" now in the Minuteman movement.

Holthouse pulls out the new argument which is intent on trying to quash the whole immigration enforcement movement, which is that illegal aliens are leaving the United States.

I don't buy it. I see the videos of lines and lines of illegal aliens coming across our border every day. You can go watch for yourself at Border Invasion Pics. Don't take this guy Holthouse's word for it.

It is amazing how coordinated those in favor of illegal aliens are. They all use each other's reports and talking points. They grasp at the statement by DHS that apprehensions along the border are down, as if that is a good thing.

The truth is that DHS simply isn't catching those that are coming across because the Border Patrol has been hamstrung and there is no completed border fence to slow illegal aliens and smugglers down. All reports on illegal immigration decreasing are bogus and just a ploy for them to bring up the fact we should give amnesty to all the illegal aliens already here, since the problem is "solved".

You know how you can tell it is a lie? LaRaza, Maldef and every other pro-illegal alien two-bit group in this country is repeating the exact same line.

This report is no different. Holthouse continues:

"...by all indications, the number of Latino immigrants attempting to cross the U.S. border has dropped to record lows ... According to a June report by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the number of U.S. Border Patrol apprehensions fell to 724,000 last year. That marked the lowest level since 1973 and a decline of more than 50% from 2000, when apprehensions peaked at 1.67 million." says Holthouse.

Anyone who believes that the time most illegal aliens were crossing the border was in the year 2000 - and not just a few years ago when amnesty was the talk of the town - is a fool. Apprehensions mean nothing to the actual number that succeeds in crossing the border.

Holthouse and the SPLC seem to have something against San Diego Minutemen founder Jeff Schwilk in particular. In the report they set him up to be the de facto leader of all the Minutemen groups in the report then call him a "hothead". Isolate and destroy - that is the plan.

They also point out that the Minutemen have been working with other groups in the area in what is called the "Patriot Coalition". The coalition includes groups for tax reform and gun rights. That's not unusual for groups to work together, after all the SPLC works with a number of radical left-wing groups who are not focused on calling people racist hate-mongers for their livelihood.

Holthouse and all of the people at the SPLC just can't resist making reference to their own reports. They note that two of the groups in the Patriot Coalition are on their "Hate Group List", which if by now you haven't figured out is about as important as my grocery list. I say my grocery list because it's something I made up without any input from others and it's just as worthless as the paper it's written on to anyone else who may end up with my list.

Oh, and Holthouse is a terribly untalented writer by the way. I had a hard time reading his drivel. He repeats a lot of the same tired words over and over. And he repeats stuff that has already been presented in the report. I can't believe they actually pay this guy for copying and pasting from Potock and Keller. Ick.

Continue To Part Seven