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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

#261

Post by tomlockwood »

dmitrygr wrote: post #255
tomlockwood wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The ACLU still has free speech lawyers, and I supported the ACLU to the tune of 1k last year. But logically it follows that supporting the right of African Americans to survive encounters with police, or for Transgender people to have healthcare, increases the amount of free speech in the world by ensuring their voices can speak in it. A decrease in the survival of people is necessarily a decrease in free speech.

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

#262

Post by b112 »

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.

Wow, considering how that trial ended up, with the women involved lying, colluding together on testimony, interacting with him after events, on and on...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Jian_Ghomeshi

Well, it is an prime example of why we have trials.... instead of public opinion lynch mobs with a noose and tree.

Frankly, those law students not wanting someone to have a fair day in court, should have been disbarred. Absurd! Court is how you determine guilt!

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

#263

Post by infamouscow »

tomerico wrote: post #225
p1necone wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The whole concept of cancel culture seems to just be used as a way to silence legitimate criticism of others as far as I can see. I'm sure it meant something at one point, but now it's just silly.

Note how you have just did exactly what you criticized ( “silence legitimate criticism of others” by dismissing those that called out cancel culture)

You've missed the point entirely and the irony of your comment makes me believe little can be done to explain why.

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

#264

Post by MattGaiser »

b112 wrote: post #262
MattGaiser wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Wow, considering how that trial ended up, with the women involved lying, colluding together on testimony, interacting with him after events, on and on... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_of_Jian_Ghomeshi Well, it is an prime example of why we have trials.... instead of public opinion lynch mobs with a noose and tree. Frankly, those law students not wanting someone to have a fair day in court, should have been di…

They were fine with the court part. They just didn't think he should have representation as "he already had the power."

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

#265

Post by chmod775 »

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

> The press freedom index places Burkina Faso, a country that bans journalists from visiting displacement camps, higher than the US

The places the US does not let journalists access are countless. A prominent example are most of the US' border facilities, the detention-like migrant "housing" facilities among them.[1]

So what you brought up can clearly not be a differentiator between those countries in terms of such an index.

[1]: https://edition.cnn.com/2021/03/22/politics/biden-administra...

Edit:

To be fair to Burkina Faso I should point out that their 'displacement camps' are a case of taking care of people in need: refugees of war. Meanwhile the US facilities are just locking people up before sending them home.

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

#266

Post by mindslight »

_-david-_ wrote: post #209
mindslight wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taylor's boyfriend was defending his home against intruders, in line with his second amendment rights. Rather than backing off, the police used this as justification to escalate their attack. "No knock" warrants are fundamentally incompatible with an armed citizenry, and are therefore a 2A issue.

I understand that, but Taylor was not accused of anything related to guns. I am not sure why the NRA should get involved with anything related to her. The charges against her boyfriend were dropped so they couldn't defend him if they wanted to. I do think if gun related charges are brought against him again the NRA should defend him.

Taylor was killed because her boyfriend exercised his second amendment rights. There are no charges to contest, because the police on the scene acted as judge, jury, and executioner. That there aren't charges against the extrajudicial killers ("murderers") to be litigated is exactly the problem.

The NRA does plenty of activism that doesn't involve defending people against charges, but for this incident they've been silent. For comparison, here is a statement that was put out by Gun Owners of America: https://www.gunowners.org/goa-speaks-out-after-no-knock-raid... . IMO it doesn't go far enough, condemning the general practice but failing to condemn the specific murderers, but at least they've said something.

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

#267

Post by tzs »

calcifer wrote: post #150
dale_glass wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 princ…

> On the other hand, those who approach civil liberties as a matter of principle face no such dilemma.

...until they remember that there are that there is more than one civil liberty, and more than one person who has civil liberties, and that sometimes one person exercising a particular civil liberty can prevent or conflict with another person exercising a different civil liberty.

Once you are dealing with a society bigger and more complicated than Gilligan's Island, you cannot escape these dilemmas.

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

#268

Post by peteretep »

tpmx wrote: post #62
Avshalom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It does seem to be the one civil liberty where ACLU people very strongly disagree with each other.

America is a weird outlier in lifting worship of freedom of speech far far beyond where other rich, free countries do, so that’s not all that surprising.

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

#269

Post by smsm42 »

6foot4_82iq wrote: post #74
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.)

How quickly things change. "In Soviet Russia, we too have freedom of speech. But in America, you have freedom after speech" -- Yakov Smirnoff

Freedom - yes. A job - well, that's complicated.

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

#270

Post by joshuamorton »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #252
himinlomax wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 us…

I don't think collectivists in general think that individuals shouldn't be allowed to own guns, but that ownership can be well regulated, in the sense that gun owners should be required to show some level of knowledge and such before purchasing a firearm (that is, ownership can be licensed[0], as opposed to carrying).

Further, its not at all clear to me that carrying permits have anything to do with the constitutional amendment. The discussion at the time and the amendment itself refer to national defense, both from external and internal threats to the nation, not "bring a gun with me to the store" (concealed/open carry), which I think is what makes many people uncomfortable.

Many other countries have regulations of this form, that you have to purchase safety equipment and the government can audit you to ensure that you are safely storing your firearms. This gets people concerned about the government seizing your guns, but I don't think those concerns are realistic (assume the gov decides to do that one day, does having a national gun registry and your gun in a safe make things look any different than the police going door to door with a swat team and searching the house)? I don't think it does.

[0]: Eventually. this would take a generation or two

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