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Welcome, ACLU

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Re: Welcome, ACLU

#681

Post by kafkaesq »

giardini wrote: post #677
kafkaesq wrote: post #641

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic of your well-thought out and ponderous argument is utterly overwhelming. Actually it's a pretty straightforward consequence of the HN guidelines, which clearly do not forbid all political discussion; just "politics for its own sake", i.e. political talk not strongly anchored in some other intrinsically legitimate topic.

Perhaps you could kindly update the HN guidelines, since they don't say that.

That's OK, they're straightforward enough, as they stand. I'm sure you understand the meaning of the quantifier "most" in the second paragraph (as opposed to the word "all" which you seem to be imagining in it place).

On top of this, the moderators (which are very active on high-traffic threads) would have shut down this thread long ago, if they felt it was in contravention of these guidelines (as they quite routinely, in fact).

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#682

Post by anigbrowl »

savagej wrote: post #600
anigbrowl wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is the American Civil Liberties Union, Not the Union of Americans' Civil Liberties. 'American' in this context refers to the provenance of the civil liberties in question, not some sort of property interest. The more you know!

Clearly I didn't know we had a one world government. If American liberties are a concept to apply over the whole world, the ACLU should be encouraging the whole world to a adopt the Bill of Rights and our Constitution.

An absurd straw man argument that reflects poorly upon you. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with the word 'provenance' or the concept of an international policy.

Our Constitution contemplates the arrival of immigrants and indeed specifies that their should be 'uniform rules' for their naturalization. It also distinguishes between citizens and persons, granting some rights to the latter group and limiting others to the former.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#683

Post by int_19h »

thecyborganizer wrote: post #263
jMyles wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are an unqualified, categorically "good" organization The ACLU is wonderful, no doubt about that. But I think some people do put an asterisk next to the group because of their (obviously somewhat strange) categorization of the protections of the 2nd amendment as outside the scope of American civil liberties.

The 2nd amendment has the second largest lobbying organization in the country looking out for it. It doesn't need help from the ACLU.

There are some aspects where 2A intersects with other rights, where NRA and others are unwilling to go.

One sticking point right now is drugs. Per federal law, any "user of an unlawful substance" is prohibited from firearm ownership, period. This includes anyone in states that legalized marijuana, including medical users. And the feds have been trying to maintain state records for medical marijuana card holders.

NRA, SAF and the rest of the bunch are unwilling to not just do anything about it, but to even speak out at all. I'm a SAF member, and I actually wrote to them about this several times, with no response. Ironically, the only gun rights org that has been consistently speaking out on this is the otherwise extremely right wing GOA.

And recently, both NRA and SAF organizations have enthusiastically endorsed Jeff Sessions, which is a huge middle finger to anyone concerned about this law...

That said, ACLU generally does get involved in cases which are centered on 2A, but involve other rights. So my hope is that they'd get involved in this as well, if a suitable case came up.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#684

Post by buddapalm »

muninn_ wrote: post #41

Although I think the American Civil Liberties Union is incredibly valuable and I'm glad they have a lot more money now to fight for the American people, I'm questioning all of this. Where was the outpouring of funding when black people were being gunned down by cops from West Coast organizations? Where has YCombinator been as our own impoverished African-Americans are getting slaughtered in the streets of Chicago? Wh…

Back then, we had a attorney general who had an interest in dealing with the problem, under an administration that could help deploy the government to deal with bad actors. That's all changed now, and the populous saw the gap, with the ACLU being well equipped to advocate for the same issues.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#685

Post by cdelsolar »

forgetsusername wrote: post #305
mjmsmith wrote: post #187

This is very welcome news, even if it won't go over well with the large number of authoritarians here.

> the large number of authoritarians here. Everybody who has a different viewpoint than me is a !

I mean, if they are supporting Trump, they are literally authoritarians.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#686

Post by int_19h »

qball wrote: post #634
mulmen wrote: post #570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I value my second amendment rights I will not allow that to prevent me from supporting the ACLU. I also can't stomach supporting the NRA. It's a challenging position to be in because I do care about my rights but I'm not sure where to turn to support my second amendment rights specifically.

There are a few other groups that aren't as heavy on deep-South cultural baggage ( https://www.saf.org/ ). Whether or not they're sufficiently dissociated is another matter entirely, though.

For what it's worth, CCRKBA - which is essentially to SAF what NRA-ILA is to NRA (involves most the same people, in particular, Alan Gottlieb; but is a political campaigning counterpart to the non-profit) - endorsed Jeff Sessions. And how!

http://www.ccrkba.org/call-your-senators-to-confirm-sessions...

“Senate confirmation of Jeff Sessions as our next Attorney General will bring about much-needed change at the Department of Justice. Instead of promoting or defending schemes that impact law-abiding Americans, his track record shows that he will go after genuine criminals.”

“The nation is in serious need of an attorney general who knows the difference between civil rights and criminal wrongs”

For those who are aware of the track record of Sessions as attorney, the highlighted bit especially is appalling.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#687

Post by jMyles »

qball wrote: post #618
jMyles wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are an unqualified, categorically "good" organization The ACLU is wonderful, no doubt about that. But I think some people do put an asterisk next to the group because of their (obviously somewhat strange) categorization of the protections of the 2nd amendment as outside the scope of American civil liberties.

Sure, but "not doing anything to improve the state of 2A" is not the same as "fighting to impose a degraded view of 2A". The ACLU has nothing to gain by promoting any particular 2A view, because that's the only right that's not universally a political sinkhole. The inconvenient truth is that all civil rights (that aren't gun rights) have opposition nearly everywhere in America. The only difference is incidentals- if…

> urban New England are the two big exceptions

Been to Manchester, NH lately?

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#688

Post by makomk »

KVFinn wrote: post #616

The ACLU defended a Republican city councilor in my parent's small home town for having his signs taken down by the Democratic mayor. You wouldn't think they'd even notice such a tiny thing, but they were there, and they won.

I have a feeling that in the current political climate, a lot of the ACLU's traditional activities will come under hostile scrutiny from their newfound supporters soon.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#689

Post by hsod »

ihsw wrote: post #50
chickenfries wrote: post #16

Peter Thiel insists that the immigration EO is does not constitute a religious ban [1], but Rudy Giuliani says this is exactly what the President asked for [2] (Also, we heard him say as much many, many times). [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2017/01/28/peter-thiel-s... [2] http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/316726-giuliani-t...

It's not just Peter Thiel but anyone of sound mind -- the top 5 countries by Muslim-majority population are not included. * Indonesia 204,847,000 (87.2%) * Pakistan 178,097,000 (96.4%) * India 172,245,158 (14.2%) * Bangladesh 145,312,000 (90%) * Nigeria 75,728,000 (47.9%) If Indonesia suddenly became plagued by radical Islamic terrorism then it would be on the list too. The seven countries targeted by the immigration…

Would you be OK with calling it a "partial Muslim ban"? While it's true that it doesn't ban all Muslims, it seems obvious that it was crafted to ensure that the vast majority of the people it banned would be Muslims.

Re: Welcome, ACLU

#690

Post by santoshalper »

krylon wrote: post #515

Heads-up: This going to be a long-ish, semi-OT rant: To be honest, I feel kind of dumb these days. How I hate admitting that. I read all the outrageous things Trump said during the Primaries and his election campaign, and I did not really take them seriously, or him. Otto von Bismarck, a German politician once said (or at least I've seen the quote attributed to him, but it seems like something he would say): "People…

The idea that there was a significant risk of military confrontation with Russia under Hillary was pure propaganda. Russia is absolutely in no position to engage the United States militarily, and are resorting to manipulating US politics because they know this.
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