The ACLU no longer even pretends to believe in civil liberties.
In the late 1960s, the ACLU was a small but powerful liberal organization devoted to a civil libertarian agenda composed primarily of devotion to freedom of speech, free exercise of religion, and the rights of accused criminals. [Linked article tells the story about how the ACLU used mass mailing targeting of liberal groups to drive its membership from a few ten thousand to much higher numbers, until, with] the election of Donald Trump, its membership rolls have grown to almost two million, almost all of them liberal politically, few of whom are devoted to civil liberties as such. Meanwhile, the left in general has become less interested in, and in some cases opposed to, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and the rights of the accused.
Future historians will have to reconstruct exactly how and why the tipping point has been reached, but the ACLU's actions over the last couple of months show that the ACLU is no longer a civil libertarian organization in any meaningful sense, but just another left-wing pressure group, albeit one with a civil libertarian history.
First, the ACLU ran an anti-Brett Kavanaugh video ad that relied entirely on something that no committed civil libertarian would countenance, guilt by association. And not just guilt by association, but guilt by association with individuals that Kavanaugh wasn't actually associated with in any way, except that they were all men who like Kavanaugh had been accused of serious sexual misconduct. The literal point of the ad is that Bill Clinton, Harvey Weinstein, and Bill Cosby were accused of sexual misconduct, they denied it but were actually guilty; therefore, Brett Kavanaugh, also having been accused of sexual misconduct, and also having denied it, is likely guilty too.
Can you imagine back in the 1950s the ACLU running an ad with the theme, "Earl Warren has been accused of being a Communist. He denies it. But Alger Hiss and and Julius Rosenberg were also accused of being Communists, they denied it, but they were lying. So Earl Warren is likely lying, too?"
Meanwhile, yesterday, the Department of Education released a proposed new Title IX regulation that provides for due process rights for accused students that had been prohibited by Obama-era guidance. Shockingly, even to those of us who have followed the ACLU's long, slow decline, the ACLU tweeted in response that the proposed regulation "promotes an unfair process, inappropriately favoring the accused." Even longtime ACLU critics are choking on the ACLU, of all organizations, claiming that due process protections "inappropriately favor the accused."
The ACLU had a clear choice between the identitarian politics of the feminist hard left, and retaining some semblance of its traditional commitment to fair process. It chose the former. And that along with the Kavanaugh ad signals the final end of the ACLU as we knew it. RIP.
Link: https://reason.com/volokh/2018/11/17/american-civil-liberties-union-rip
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Not much of an argument, but an opinion nonetheless.
But, I have seen the ACLU go away from civil liberties, and towards liberal causes. The NRA, on the other hand, has never gone away from its cause, regardless of conservatisim or liberalism. The NRA would endorse a straight slate of liberal dems if they supported the freedom to own a gun. The ACLU would have supported the rights of the accused, whether they were Illinois Nazis or Antifa thugs...until recently. The ACLU has definitely changed; there is not much argument there. He just explained a little bit about how it happened.
But the ACLU supporting free speech for all is an organization that does not support civil liberties when the civil liberties might mean supporting all freedoms in the constitution for all Americans. Where did it go so wrong?
But, I have seen the ACLU go away from civil liberties, and towards liberal causes. The NRA, on the other hand, has never gone away from its cause, regardless of conservatisim or liberalism. The NRA would endorse a straight slate of liberal dems if they supported the freedom to own a gun. The ACLU would have supported the rights of the accused, whether they were Illinois Nazis or Antifa thugs...until recently. The ACLU has definitely changed; there is not much argument there. He just explained a little bit about how it happened.
I guess the point is that you'd really need to dig into the daily works of the ACLU to perform an accurate assessment of whether they have abandoned their civil liberties roots. This article seems to think that two anecdotes proves that the ACLU no longer does any civil liberties work (hence "RIP"). I think a better thesis of the article is that the ACLU sometimes takes causes that people could interpret as being counter to their initial charter. That's a little different than declaring it dead.
and that right there should red flag the piece was not worth of a read.
Bernstein and you are the perfect the identarian so much so you would post something like this. His thesis that the ACLU is dead because they didn't support his/your opinion/identity in politics or what you think is an ACLU mission is one sided. In fact, you and many on this board wouldn't support the ACLU in any of their decisions or support of litigating civil liberties - of which you mistake for, they're going after your rights because you don't like the causes they litigate and that word/idea of "liberties" means something negative if not evil in your definition of being an American or what American's can have - Freedom from Gov't chains.
Lost to you in all this is what the ACLU actually means to American's and the constitution.
Somehow you think all those who support the ACLU agree with all of their choices for litigation - it's not so, but the base of their existence to support the Constitution and the liberties of all Americans is always worth supporting.
Long live the ACLU
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Link: https://www.aclu.org/other/aclu-history-taking-stand-free-speech-skokie
can hurt our feelings and our sense of what is good and just, but without these freedoms and the protections of them, the void would cause authoritarianism to take hold and that would be by far worse than a few shitheads waving some banners and being, well, dicks. Their rights need to be protected too as with the rights you have. A group like the ACLU is not always loved when they should be. Losing membership that way is the knee-jerk way so many rely on to guide them when a little forethought would remind them which country they actually live in. Like you, it would be grand if and the others like Neddie and Baron would figure out which country you all want to live in.
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But, people like that are now attacked by liberals, not championed as examples to be followed.