The Tea Party is a Hate Group (According to SPLC)

The Southern Poverty Law Center has issued a report in which they conclude that hate groups are on the decline.  Of course, some would say that the SPLC itself is a hate group, but that's not the point.  I'm more interested in what SPLC says is a "hate group":

Demoralized by the reelection of President Barack Obama but calmed by Washington’s failure to enact new gun control laws, hate groups are on the decline in the United States. 

That’s according to a new report out Tuesday from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which found that the number of hate groups in the U.S. declined by seven percent in 2013. After a dramatic rise following Obama’s first election and the worst of the recession, the number of anti-government “patriot” group identified by the SPLC also fell 19 percent between 2012 and 2013.

Anti-government, patriots...?

What does that mean, exactly?  Patriots are hate groups?  You're a hate group if you don't expect big-government to take care of you cradle to grave?

Advocates of the Second Amendment are apparently haters:

The author of the new report, SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok, said momentum on the far-right experienced a marked turnaround in 2013 when it became clear that congressional efforts to enact significant gun control legislation would fail. “Guns and gun control are so much at the heart of the radical right,” Potok sad. “That looked like an issue that was going to become white hot, but it essentially died and went away.”

It's as if Janet Napolitano is here again calling us all "right-wing extremists."

Naturally the SPLC defines the Tea Party as a "hate group"...

The power of hate groups is largely rooted in their ability to exist as an alternative to mainstream political debate. In recent years, as local, state and national political figures affiliated with the tea party movement have adopted some views that previously only existed outside the mainstream political system, the far-right has struggled to rally support for its organizations. Various scandals within the hierarchies of some hate groups, as well as deaths and arrests of some leaders, have also hurt organizations’ ability to recruit and build their ranks.

...because having a belief in the Constitution and in limited government interference of your daily life in matters such as education, health care, and privacy is probably not "mainstream."

Honestly, it's enough to make me dust off my Tea Party t-shirt, call C.L. Bryant for a chat, and organize a rally.

SPLC senior fellow Mark Potok suggests that if immigration becomes a hot issue in Congress that the Tea Party hate groups "will rise again."

One can only hope.