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The Disintegration of the ACLU

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Re: The Disintegration of the ACLU

#11

Post by geofft »

throwaway0x2 wrote: post #8
geofft wrote: post #2

This article glosses over the actual results of Skokie and Charlottesville , both of which are pretty important. The Nazis never ended up marching in Skokie, nor did they march in any of the other small towns where they'd requested permits, either. There's a fair bit of reason to believe that their goal wasn't to promote their ideas, nor even to harass the heavily Jewish village of Skokie through marching, but to har…

>Why is it taken as an obvious fact that said female, LGBT, and Black students are wrong about free speech? Because de facto (and de jure) they are. >Why are they clearly indoctrinated? https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-cod... >Why not ask them why they don't support it? FIRE literally does exactly that. >Perhaps they have a well-considered opinion on the matter? This made me audibly chuckle. U…

That Atlantic article is pretty clear that they don't know the cause ("It’s difficult to know exactly why vindictive protectiveness has burst forth so powerfully in the past few years.") They've got a bunch of speculations, that children aren't allowed to play outside or whatever. But even those weak speculations don't lend themselves to the thesis that children were indoctrinated: no part of being told not to play outside means that you emerge programmed to oppose free speech. The further extrapolations don't hold up too strongly - if the younger generation is trained, as the article says, to believe that the older generation will keep them safe from a scary world, why is it the younger generation that is taking the lead in censorship? Why is the liberal professor mentioned at the beginning of the article scared of his liberal students? The article says that increasing reports of mental health issues from students "has surely changed the way university faculty and administrators interact with them," but again, doesn't that mean that it's the students driving that change, and the university faculty and administrators figuring out how to adapt?

If anything, the article tends to support the case that they're not indoctrinated. It mentions that students grew up as teenagers on Facebook, "sharing their moral judgments and supporting one another in moral campaigns and conflicts," which - again - is self-driven by this group, not forced on them by anyone. (And also, who would be indoctrinating them? The same liberal professors that are scared of their liberal students?)

Re: The Disintegration of the ACLU

#12

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

bhouston wrote: post #10

It is hard to take this as a serious criticism First James Kirkpatrick argues that the ACLU doesn't stand for anything these days. Then he starts to associate the ACLU with cancel culture. Mostly by citing surveys of leftist students and implying that the ACLU is also leftist thus it is basically the same. Then he argues that the ACLU does stand very strongly for transgender rights but then criticizes it for being st…

He's not arguing that the ACLU stands for nothing, I don't think. He's arguing that it's shifted towards being a general-purpose progressive activism group, standing up for whichever causes are trendy in progressive circles and ignoring causes that aren't, rather than prioritizing based on the underlying principles of civil liberties they're nominally protecting.

Re: The Disintegration of the ACLU

#13

Post by [deleted] »

geofft wrote: post #11
throwaway0x2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is it taken as an obvious fact that said female, LGBT, and Black students are wrong about free speech? Because de facto (and de jure) they are. >Why are they clearly indoctrinated? https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-cod... >Why not ask them why they don't support it? FIRE literally does exactly that. >Perhaps they have a well-considered opinion on the matter? This made me audibly chuckle. U…

That Atlantic article is pretty clear that they don't know the cause (" It’s difficult to know exactly why vindictive protectiveness has burst forth so powerfully in the past few years. ") They've got a bunch of speculations, that children aren't allowed to play outside or whatever. But even those weak speculations don't lend themselves to the thesis that children were indoctrinated: no part of being told not to play…

[deleted]

Re: The Disintegration of the ACLU

#14

Post by slibhb »

bhouston wrote: post #10

It is hard to take this as a serious criticism First James Kirkpatrick argues that the ACLU doesn't stand for anything these days. Then he starts to associate the ACLU with cancel culture. Mostly by citing surveys of leftist students and implying that the ACLU is also leftist thus it is basically the same. Then he argues that the ACLU does stand very strongly for transgender rights but then criticizes it for being st…

The article quotes the guy who led the ACLU from 1978 to 2001:

> My successor, and the board of directors that have supported him, have basically tried to transform the organization from a politically neutral, nonpartisan civil liberties organization into a progressive liberal organization

You are of course not obligated to agree. But acting like it's just the author sharing his funny opinions seems a bit disingenuous.

If you are a progressive, you might not object to the turn the ACLU has taken. For liberals and conservatives, it's been a marked decline. The same is true for the SPLC.

Re: The Disintegration of the ACLU

#16

Post by [deleted] »

geofft wrote: post #11
throwaway0x2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is it taken as an obvious fact that said female, LGBT, and Black students are wrong about free speech? Because de facto (and de jure) they are. >Why are they clearly indoctrinated? https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-cod... >Why not ask them why they don't support it? FIRE literally does exactly that. >Perhaps they have a well-considered opinion on the matter? This made me audibly chuckle. U…

That Atlantic article is pretty clear that they don't know the cause (" It’s difficult to know exactly why vindictive protectiveness has burst forth so powerfully in the past few years. ") They've got a bunch of speculations, that children aren't allowed to play outside or whatever. But even those weak speculations don't lend themselves to the thesis that children were indoctrinated: no part of being told not to play…

[deleted]

Re: The Disintegration of the ACLU

#17

Post by [deleted] »

geofft wrote: post #11
throwaway0x2 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Why is it taken as an obvious fact that said female, LGBT, and Black students are wrong about free speech? Because de facto (and de jure) they are. >Why are they clearly indoctrinated? https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/09/the-cod... >Why not ask them why they don't support it? FIRE literally does exactly that. >Perhaps they have a well-considered opinion on the matter? This made me audibly chuckle. U…

That Atlantic article is pretty clear that they don't know the cause (" It’s difficult to know exactly why vindictive protectiveness has burst forth so powerfully in the past few years. ") They've got a bunch of speculations, that children aren't allowed to play outside or whatever. But even those weak speculations don't lend themselves to the thesis that children were indoctrinated: no part of being told not to play…

[deleted]

Re: The Disintegration of the ACLU

#18

Post by bhouston »

slibhb wrote: post #14
bhouston wrote: post #10

It is hard to take this as a serious criticism First James Kirkpatrick argues that the ACLU doesn't stand for anything these days. Then he starts to associate the ACLU with cancel culture. Mostly by citing surveys of leftist students and implying that the ACLU is also leftist thus it is basically the same. Then he argues that the ACLU does stand very strongly for transgender rights but then criticizes it for being st…

The article quotes the guy who led the ACLU from 1978 to 2001: > My successor, and the board of directors that have supported him, have basically tried to transform the organization from a politically neutral, nonpartisan civil liberties organization into a progressive liberal organization You are of course not obligated to agree. But acting like it's just the author sharing his funny opinions seems a bit disingenuou…

Is trans rights progressive? This seems to be one of his big objections to the current ACLU.

ACLU used to advocate for gay and lesbian rights. At the time it was viewed by conservatives as a bad thing generally. But now it is accepted and seems like they were on the right side of history.

I feel that trans rights is basically the same thing as gay and lesbian rights were previously. Not widely popular but important to advocate for.

James is just being a standard conservative and arguing for the status quo (conservatism is generally based in keeping things the way they were.) Where as the ACLU is advocating for equality in a place where we previously haven’t given it.

In fact in the light of James conservatism this article is stereotypical. It is better the way things used to be and this change is all bad. But in fact in the past the ACLU was controversial and it only seems less so in hind sight.

In general the article boring. Lots of words though but in the end boring.

Re: The Disintegration of the ACLU

#19

Post by SpicyLemonZest »

bhouston wrote: post #18
slibhb wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article quotes the guy who led the ACLU from 1978 to 2001: > My successor, and the board of directors that have supported him, have basically tried to transform the organization from a politically neutral, nonpartisan civil liberties organization into a progressive liberal organization You are of course not obligated to agree. But acting like it's just the author sharing his funny opinions seems a bit disingenuou…

Is trans rights progressive? This seems to be one of his big objections to the current ACLU. ACLU used to advocate for gay and lesbian rights. At the time it was viewed by conservatives as a bad thing generally. But now it is accepted and seems like they were on the right side of history. I feel that trans rights is basically the same thing as gay and lesbian rights were previously. Not widely popular but important t…

Trans issues were mentioned in only two paragraphs of the source article. Even there, the subject was a prominent ACLU attorney's opposition to books on the topic, not advocacy for rights as such. I think you're finding his conservatism stereotypical simply because you're projecting your stereotypes of conservative beliefs onto him.
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