Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis • Hacker News Board

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#141

Post by UncleMeat » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

javagram wrote: post #136

UncleMeat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd reveal my identity. More broadly, these faculty members include researchers who work in: * climate science (death threats, widespread media attacks, attempts from politicians to cancel grants) * digital privacy (death threats) * history of policing (death threats, attacks from Hannity, attacks from the Hoover institute trying to prevent her thesis from being accepted) * history of women in medieval europe (see b…

https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-unc-trustees-alleged-... FIRE issued a statement about investigating UNC chapel hill. Do you have any information that NHJ approached them to represent her in a lawsuit and was turned down? Your other examples are pretty vague but if they are secret enough that you can’t link to them, why would you expect FIRE to have learned of them? Is this inside information you have about th…

I'd expect FIRE to have learned of them because the affected individuals sought legal support from a variety of institutions and organizations.

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#142

Post by asabjorn » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

javagram wrote: post #139

asabjorn wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its got a huge endowment and a strong brand that can be subverted into fighting for progressive causes instead of what it used to do. It's woke 101 playbook. Basecamp and coinbase showed that you either choose to have zero tolerance of politics in the workplace, or the woke will make you spend as many resources as possible on political activism instead of whatever you used to do. A dynamic that has been so toxic to w…

What the ACLU does is inherently political, talking about basecamp and coinbase here doesn’t make much sense to me. The question facing the ACLU is should they be partisan (fight for the rights of just one side) or merely political (fight for all side’s rights, even the sides that you disagree with).

It is relevant because you had an organization with a clear creed and track record to protect the liberal principles even when its inconvenient, that is now subverted into political activism for progressive causes in the same way that similar activism subverted basecamp and coinbase.

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#143

Post by syshum » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

hed wrote: post #57

joshuamorton wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACLU has never defended or supported Hellerian 2A rights ( https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment ), and its not clear that they should change their position due to a shift in SC precedent, anymore than that they should shift their position on speech if the SC decided to revert to Schenck .

Once they came out after Heller and stated they still believed it was a collective right, I knew my relationship with them was over. ACLU (and others) cite it as a 5-4 decision but even the dissenters on the case believed it was an individual right, they just still thought it could be regulated / scrutinized. In that sense the individual right won 9-0.

The collective right never made any sense in the first place, not a single other amendment in the bill of rights is viewed as a "collective right" so why in the hell would this lone amendment be a "collective right"

Further what the hell does a "collective right" even look like in the first place....

the ACLU hates guns, does not believe anyone outside the government should have guns, the "collective right" was just their cover so they did not have to admit they only stood for some of the constitution not all of it

//EDIT: Mods have rate limited me, so in response to comment below allow me to add

I guess I should have implicitly stated Constitutional Rights, and more specifically Bill of Rights in the context.

On top of that, that is still not a "collective right", that is more of a Balance of rights, You have a right to your property, I have a right to my property, if your actions (aka polluting ) damage my property then you have directly harmed my individual rights and are thus liable

An example of this would be the fact that I have the right to swing my arms, but if I swing my arms in a manner that hits another person I have violated their bodily rights not to be injured by me. No one would claim that is a "collective right", no here we are balancing individual rights, their right to not be injured trumps my right to swing my arms in the physical space they occupy at that moment

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#144

Post by javagram » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

michael1999 wrote: post #101

CerealFounder wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think theres probably an interesting full book here examining exactly how and why "cause based" orgs become all end up looking the same once they cross a certain threshold. Power, influence and money seem to be a magnet for more of itself, so it fundamentally shifts the guiding principal of each org as it grows bigger. Like why do no-profits and charities seem to corrupt their aim at a greater speed than for profit…

I’m not sure they do. Restaurant owners make bad choices, start skimping on food, etc. all the time. The difference is that the customers notice and the restaurants go out of business. But political organizations “produce” nebulous goods which are difficult to value or sometimes even understand. So corrupt civil organizations can continue much longer and a practical business.

The ACLU going “corrupt” is arguably much better business for them since they can more effectively harvest donations from politically engaged partisans on the left - their fundraising has been supercharged since 2016. Right-wing partisans weren’t giving to them much anyway so more closely aligning with a side is all upside from a financial perspective.

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#145

Post by UncleMeat » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

asabjorn wrote: post #123

UncleMeat wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It'd reveal my identity. More broadly, these faculty members include researchers who work in: * climate science (death threats, widespread media attacks, attempts from politicians to cancel grants) * digital privacy (death threats) * history of policing (death threats, attacks from Hannity, attacks from the Hoover institute trying to prevent her thesis from being accepted) * history of women in medieval europe (see b…

I am not sure how I am supposed to get your identity from you providing a few published examples. The UNC Chapel Hill case is a bad example as Nikole Hannah-Jones engaged in divisive political activism in her role instead of academic rigor and is the brains behind major indoctrination efforts such as the 1619 project. Someone like her that teach students what to think instead of how should not get tenure, and does no…

So much for free speech then. Clearly some kinds are good and some are "divisive political activism" that don't deserve any kind of protection.

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#146

Post by dale_glass » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

calcifer wrote: post #119

dale_glass wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not what I get from reading it. You could give that a try. Here's an interesting bit: > The A.C.L.U. of Virginia argued that this violated the free speech rights of the far-right groups and won, preserving the right for the group to parade downtown. With too few police officers who reacted too passively, the demonstration turned ugly and violent; in addition to fistfights, the far right loosed anti-Semitic and…

> At that point a lot of people started asking themselves "Are we really being a positive influence?". And a conflict began. Those people were clearly in the wrong though. After all, why join a civil liberties union if your support for said liberties is conditional on your whims?

That's because it's a lot easier to be principled in the abstract, than when it blows up in your face.

Pre-Brexit, there were a lot of people that really wanted sovereignty.

Post-Brexit, it turns out that sovereignty didn't make a lot of those people happy, because it got in the way of their employment or business, and it turns out you can't eat sovereignty.

Same thing happened here. It's a lot easier to defend a despicable person's right to hold a protest when they're powerless. But when people start dying that gets a lot harder to justify.

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#147

Post by seventytwo » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

insert_coin wrote: post #83

Free speech is the only “right” that matters. Thoughtcrime should not be allowed to be prosecuted, mob lynching is not justice. But if the ACLU is compromised maybe it is too late.

There’s lots of “speech” that’s already illegal in the US.

Please, define where the actual line should be.

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#148

Post by verytrivial » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:46 PM UTC

Liberalism and Identity Politics never really sorted out their relationship, and it turns out the latter won Twitter (and created excellent foot-holds for bad-actors doing information "warfare" now everyone has social media welded directly to their brains.)

Edit: A reply would be nice if down voting. The examples the first subject in the article uses are implicitly comparing liberty of speech to protected/disenfranchised classes or characteristics of people, and how ACLU seems to have changed disposition here. That's my point. My use of Identity Politics is not baiting -- it's a well studied topic in the social sciences.

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#149

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:49 PM UTC

Applejinx wrote: post #112

insert_coin wrote: post #83

Free speech is the only “right” that matters. Thoughtcrime should not be allowed to be prosecuted, mob lynching is not justice. But if the ACLU is compromised maybe it is too late.

That gives rise to the fair question of, 'is free speech the only law that exists?' To what extent do all other considerations go by the wayside in order to draw a bright line sanctioning ALL possible expressions of ideas in speech, by definition rendering them immune from any sort of judgement or consequence? I think there's a fair amount of existing law that's made rather ridiculous by this position. In particular,…

[deleted]

Re: Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis

#150

Post by calcifer » Sun, Jun 06, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

dale_glass wrote: post #146

calcifer wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At that point a lot of people started asking themselves "Are we really being a positive influence?". And a conflict began. Those people were clearly in the wrong though. After all, why join a civil liberties union if your support for said liberties is conditional on your whims?

That's because it's a lot easier to be principled in the abstract, than when it blows up in your face. Pre-Brexit, there were a lot of people that really wanted sovereignty. Post-Brexit, it turns out that sovereignty didn't make a lot of those people happy, because it got in the way of their employment or business, and it turns out you can't eat sovereignty. Same thing happened here. It's a lot easier to defend a des…

> But when people start dying that gets a lot harder to justify.

Only for those who were unprincipled in the first place. Those who approach civil liberties from a point of subjective right vs wrong are doomed to failure - the moment a case comes up that clashes with their own viewpoints, they will abandon the liberties they claimed to defend. On the other hand, those who approach civil liberties as a matter of principle face no such dilemma.