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

nytimes.com

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

#251

Post by minkzilla »

wearywanderer wrote: post #51
myWindoonn wrote: post #6

They phoned me earlier this year and asked for $1500 USD. I asked them why we live in a country where people are starving, exposed, and sick in a country that has a bounty of food, housing, and healthcare. “Liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind,” says a person who probably has all three of those things. Feed people, and then ask for virtues from them.

> “Liberals are leaving the First Amendment behind,” That's nonsensical. If somebody leaves the First Amendment behind, they are leaving liberalism behind. If you do not support free speech, you simply are not liberal.

You are talking text book liberal but I believe the person you are responding to is using liberal to refer to a specific political party, The Democratic Party. Democrats are referred to as liberals or THE liberals in the US.

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

#252

Post by thaumasiotes »

himinlomax wrote: post #244
thaumasiotes wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

A well regulated militia, perhaps? Tout bad nobody thought of that.

The term "well regulated" in the second amendment means something like "in good working order". (Compare the sense of the word "order" as "command", which is a similar development.) This is very clear if you read the contemporaneous discussion, which often substitutes synonyms. The idea is that you can call for a force from the militia and they will show up, already possessing weapons that they already know how to use.

(Another thing you'll learn immediately by reading that discussion is that one of the primary purposes of the second amendment was to prevent the United States from having a standing army...)

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

#253

Post by MattGaiser »

throwaway2162 wrote: post #113
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.)

I wonder how large the generational divide is there. Are younger lawyers less likely to take cases of clients they deem detestable? The article alludes to some internal rift but the topic may deserve an article all on its own.

When I was in university, there were law students who called for lawyers defending certain people (in this case Jian Ghomeshi) in court to be disbarred.

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

#254

Post by DigiDigiorno »

whymauri wrote: post #219
Avshalom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Yeah, this honestly seems like a nothingburger to me. They have institutional priorities right now for other civil liberties, and once they feel satisfied with progress there they'll probably re-invest resourced into their free speech cases to avoid churn or even grow that area. It's short term vs long term thinking and clearly they know way more about the Constitution and law than I do to identify major threats to l…

The head of the ACLU from the 1970s to 2001 says he doesn't think the ACLU of today would have taken the cases that made them famous. (See "Mighty Ira" a documentary on him.)

The ACLU caving to political donors under new executive directors in the Obama years isn't a nothingburger to lawyers like me who looked up to them.

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

#255

Post by dmitrygr »

tomlockwood wrote: post #247
dmitrygr wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or perhaps they come from a place where speech can get you jailed, and unlike you know what it is like to have no constitutional right to free speech? Perhaps they know the value of what you seem so eager to give up, because unlike you they've lived without it? There are literally places in the world right now where wearing the wrong t-shirt color outside (Thailand, Belarus) Can get you jailed, tortured, or possibly…

All the people that come from a place where speech can get you jailed, can only come because they are alive. There's a certain element of survivorship bias there.

So by your logic, as long as at least one murderer in the world exists, we are not allowed to discuss any other topic, liberty, or important subject?

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

#256

Post by canadianfella »

MattGaiser wrote: post #253
throwaway2162 wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how large the generational divide is there. Are younger lawyers less likely to take cases of clients they deem detestable? The article alludes to some internal rift but the topic may deserve an article all on its own.

When I was in university, there were law students who called for lawyers defending certain people (in this case Jian Ghomeshi) in court to be disbarred.

Not exactly a monster.

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

#257

Post by toyg »

michaelt wrote: post #220
depaulagu wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, people fixate on free speech because no other right even makes sense if you don't have free expression. It's the foundation for our democratic society.

Eh, countries like Germany seem to have managed OK with banning nazi symbols - it hasn't proven to be a slippery slope leading to a ban on criticising the government, or anything like that.

Germany has strong protections for individual freedoms and privacy in their constitution, precisely to avoid an illiberal government from arising ever again. The Nazi ban is effectively the lone exception to the rule.

This said, European police generally gets away with a degree of prevarication that North Americans would find unconceivable. The US constitution enshrines the rights of individuals over government, in a way that no European country can match (as far as I know).

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

#258

Post by toiletfuneral »

LatteLazy wrote: post #178
toiletfuneral wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the term “woke” mean in this comment? You use it like it has a specific set of definitions I should know, but it mostly looks like a catch-all for any uncomfortable positions someone would rather not confront.

I am not the person you replied to (I am the root commentor). As he's been down voted he won't be able to reply for a while I think. As it is, I think a good faith reading of his comment would just require woke to mean "people who expect their work to conform to their politics". I worked at an investment bank recently, they just wanted to make money -> not woke. After that I worked at a brokerage, the CEO announced s…

Sorry but I just can’t imagine listening to a investment banker on anything regarding ethics

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

#259

Post by StavrosK »

toyg wrote: post #257
michaelt wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eh, countries like Germany seem to have managed OK with banning nazi symbols - it hasn't proven to be a slippery slope leading to a ban on criticising the government, or anything like that.

Germany has strong protections for individual freedoms and privacy in their constitution, precisely to avoid an illiberal government from arising ever again. The Nazi ban is effectively the lone exception to the rule. This said, European police generally gets away with a degree of prevarication that North Americans would find unconceivable. The US constitution enshrines the rights of individuals over government, in a…

> This said, European police generally gets away with a degree of prevarication that North Americans would find unconceivable.

Not to be inflammatory, but North American police generally gets away with a degree of murder that Europeans find inconceivable.

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

#260

Post by smsm42 »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #197
arrosenberg wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

The design purpose of the Bill of Rights was to protect the people from government impositions. Do you think that people who wrote it, with that purpose in their minds, were worried that the State would ban their own State Police from carrying firearms, and that's what they should prevent? How would that even look like - the Government will issue an edict that no Government employee is allowed to carry firearms, even in law enforcement, but the Courts would come in and say - no-no-no, your police has the right to bear arms! So you must have the armed police, whether you want it or not!

This sounds completely contrary to what in practice every government on Earth does. Of course the State can arm their agents, if they want to - you don't need to specially mention it as a fundamental right, as you don't need to specially mention they are allowed to breathe or eat - that's how it always happens. What doesn't always happen and needs special protection - is the right of the citizens which are not government agents, and thus the government - which always has a lot of armed people in their employ - can easily walk all over them. To mitigate it somewhat was the exact purpose of the Bill of Rights.

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