Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 550 posts

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

#191

Post by AwaAwa »

pharmakom wrote: post #183
TrispusAttucks wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yet here you are. Using your free speech to spread your anti-white message. Your voice is very repressed indeed. Shame you can't just say what you really want.

I don’t see how the message is anti-white. The claim seems to be that “free speech” has become something of a dog whistle. It’s certainly true where I am, and as a supporter of free speech I dislike the association!

If 'free speech' is a 'dog whistle' what would be a viable alternative to get the same ideal, without falling afoul of a shift in the 'dog whistle' goalpost?

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

#192

Post by vmception »

javagram wrote: post #155
vmception wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even the most extreme proponents of the 2nd amendment have examples of it working The various police forces during the capital seige - in January, remember how that was this year - said they used less force because the participants were armed and knew they could shoot back Their whole thing is that they will make the state think twice, whereas the peaceful and unarmed protestors get knocked around with no recourse Wi…

> The various police forces during the capital seige - in January, remember how that was this year - said they used less force because the participants were armed and knew they could shoot back I think this is mostly inaccurate? The Jan 6 protestors/rioters mostly left their guns at home due to fear of D.C.‘s strict gun laws. Even the oathkeepers planned to keep their guns in Virginia and ferry them over by boat only…

DC Metro Police were also there

If I find the quotes again from officer(s) interviews I’ll link you

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

#193

Post by mnouquet »

atoav wrote: post #168

For free speech to be a reasonable thing to priorise over other things you have to have some more fundamental rules of society in place. E.g. fighting for free speech during the rise of the nazi party in 1920s Germany might sound like a noble thing, but once the Nazis whos speech you defended are in power they will shoot you at your doorstep for defending that of their enemies. That doesn't mean you have forbid Nazis…

> For free speech to be a reasonable thing to priorise over other things you have to have some more fundamental rules of society in place. E.g. fighting for free speech during the rise of the nazi party in 1920s Germany might sound like a noble thing, but once the Nazis whos speech you defended are in power they will shoot you at your doorstep for defending that of their enemies.

Do you mean the actual summary of what happened in the US over the past 50 years ?

"These Rights were convenient at the time we were a minority, but now, we are in power, they are in the way of our ideal utopia."

> I'd rather loose the right to utter certain inflamatory phrases than loose the right and the possibility to vote the next government out of office in a fair and representative election.

And that's why the 2nd Amendment is protecting the 1st. (and all the subsequent).

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

#194

Post by thaumasiotes »

ipaddr wrote: post #126
IshKebab wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I think it's interesting to think what people of today will be cancelled for. My best guesses are eating meat, and doing business with China.

Raising children at home. In the near future an idea will arise that trained professionals will be better to train children as they grow up and parents would provide more value to society if they continued to work and not had to spend time with their children. Human animal relationships. Animals will gain rights and it will be a natural outcome. Robot phobia, followed by robot acceptance and relationships. Kissing or…

> Raising children at home. In the near future an idea will arise that trained professionals will be better to train children as they grow up and parents would provide more value to society if they continued to work and not had to spend time with their children.

Separating parents from their children is an idea from the recent past; no need to invoke the near future. It was a policy element of various communist societies including Israeli kibbutzim.

It is staggeringly, tremendously unpopular. There is no need to fear it taking off.

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

#195

Post by fvdessen »

pochamago wrote: post #186
digianarchist wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most societies function perfectly fine without a constitutional protection for speech. In fact a few countries rank better than the United States on press freedom without it.

The press freedom index places Burkina Faso, a country that bans journalists from visiting displacement camps, higher than the US, so I'm a little skeptical of its findings

Can journalists visit Guantanamo?

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

#196

Post by Applejinx »

yhoneycomb wrote: post #156
dmitrygr wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IF you are right, that just means we need MORE free speech for those who don't have it, NOT less for those who do!

Ironic that there are so many deleted comments on a post about free speech

Not at all: functionally, there's a meta-gaming thing that goes on where 'free speech' is treated as sort of antifa Kryptonite. It's not being argued in good faith at all. It's a tactic.

You'll find that the same people making a big noise about 'free speech' will do everything they possibly can to suppress and conceal the speech of those who are calling 'em out for arguing in bad faith… because they are arguing in bad faith, because they have absolutely no intention of furthering free speech. It is purely a tactic.

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

#197

Post by thaumasiotes »

arrosenberg wrote: post #153
syshum wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Further what the hell does a "collective right" even look like in the first place.... I'll give a non-gun example - you buy a piece of property near the headway of an important river. You have an individual right to improve the property, and really use it any way you want. HOWEVER - the people who live downstream of you ALSO have a collective right to use the river, which puts a limit on your individual rights. You…

Do they? That would imply a model where the neighborhood watch is free (encouraged, even!) to own guns. My sense is that the collective rights people believe the police should be allowed to own guns, but certainly not local volunteers.

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

#198

Post by xbar »

Avshalom wrote: post #49
tpmx wrote: post #22

I like this idea: https://twitter.com/kittypurrzog/status/1401610476237197312 The ACLU should split into two groups: ACLU Sr, which fights for free speech rights, and ACLU Jr, which fights against them (Yes, I saw this when PG retweeted it.)

You know free speech isn't the only civil liberty right?

True. We also need to keep soldiers from moving into our homes.

More seriously, the ACLU has always faced an identity crisis and a consequent PR problem.

If the ACLU embraced all civil liberties, wouldn't you expect more Bill-Of-Rights-T-Shirt wearers to be more supportive?

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

#199

Post by Applejinx »

stirfish wrote: post #58
nxc18 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. I was turned off by the “my way or the highway” mentality on trans issues shown in their Twitter. Failure to defend 2A rights, now that NRA is clearly not principled in any way (maybe it never was), also bothered me. It is hard to imagine them defending an anti-trans person in 2021. As despicable as those people are, they still have civil rights. As a gay man, I would have been despicable for most of the past 1…

The NRA started as a way to retrain Union soldiers to actually aim their weapons instead of volleying them, as they were no longer using smooth-bored muskets. If that's a principle, they did that. I'm not sure why they became a weird mix of Russians and the KKK.

Money, politics, and quite a lot of persistent effort.

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

#200

Post by pochamago »

fvdessen wrote: post #195
pochamago wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The press freedom index places Burkina Faso, a country that bans journalists from visiting displacement camps, higher than the US, so I'm a little skeptical of its findings

Can journalists visit Guantanamo?

There are limitations, but yes. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas... I would also personally draw a line between access to a military prison and what is effectively a refugee camp
Post reply on HN