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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

#361

Post by simonh »

koheripbal wrote: post #231
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.

It doesn't seem like there's so much a rift as a complete change in policy. Per the article, the old policy defending Free Speech was ... > "we are committed to represent those whose views we regard as repugnant" Whereas the new policy says... > "lawyers should balance taking a free speech case representing right-wing groups whose “values are contrary to our values” against the potential such a case might give “offen…

It's evidence of a fundamental misunderstanding of what free speech is and why it's important at the highest levels. Free speech is the right to say things that others find offensive. If being offended is enough of an excuse to silence others, then anyone, at any time, can silence anyone else with impunity. If this power is only given to marginalised groups, then it becomes a matter of who defines marginalisation and who gets to draw the dividing lines in identity politics.

Come on ACLU, is free speech a fundamental right or a contingent power to be granted or revoked?

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

#362

Post by dionidium »

borepop wrote: post #323
koheripbal wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which civil right is diminished by someone's offensive speech?

There are many ways this can occur. Think of intimidating, racist language being used to discourage minorities from voting, for example. Or a public official whose expression of obnoxious views about women prevents female employees from feeling secure in the workplace. The overall tone of the comments here seems to regard speech as an obvious, unadulterated good. I think the reality is actually much more complex.

All of this was well understood in, say, 1975. The tension you're describing is why the ACLU's hardline stance on speech and the rights of the accused has always been controversial and deeply unpopular in some circles. Without putting too fine a point on it: that's literally what made them the ACLU.

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

#363

Post by phs318u »

splitstud wrote: post #356
alecb wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither Rahman and Mattis worked for the ACLU and are having the book thrown at them (potentially 50+ years) for burning an empty NYPD van. The rest of your comment is trite Taibbi-parroting about cancel culture.

So if you even make an argument that sounds like one an unperson made, you are also an unperson?

smsm made a point that implied some facts.

alecb rebutted those facts, added one of his own and made a critique on the rest of smsm's comment. Nowhere is that making smsm an "unperson".

People are free to make a point. And others are free to critique that point. No one has the right to consequence/criticism-free speech.

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

#364

Post by skissane »

a1369209993 wrote: post #309
skissane wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a very extreme interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, that it outlaws all limits on civilian weapons ownership except those which also apply to the military. Even among gun rights activists, few would go as far as you are going here. The 2nd Amendment was originally only meant to apply to the federal government. Its original authors were happy for state and local government to regulate private firearms ownership…

> that it outlaws all limits on civilian weapons ownership except those which also apply to the military. Yes, that is the point; to ensure that militias independent of the national government have force parity with the professional military. (Although strictly speaking I'm talking about the underlying human right that it enforces, not the second amendment per se. Just like the right to free speech isn't actually con…

> Yes, that is the point; to ensure that militias independent of the national government have force parity with the professional military.

But what about the professional militaries of the state governments? (Which still exist on paper in every state, and in practice too in 22 of them; the "state defense forces"). The 2nd Amendment's intention was certainly not to give militias force parity with the professional militaries of the state governments. The point was to reserve the regulation of militias, and civilian weapon ownership more generally, to the states, not to put them beyond government regulation altogether. The very phrase with which the 2nd Amendment began, "A well regulated Militia", presumed the continuing power of the state governments to regulate militias, and hence also regulate (and even restrict) private firearms ownership.

> (Although strictly speaking I'm talking about the underlying human right that it enforces, not the second amendment per se.

I don't think the 2nd Amendment was ever intended to enforce a universal human right. That's reading back into it something in which you believe but in which the authors of the text itself by and large did not.

There is no evidence that the majority of its authors and ratifiers shared your belief in a universal human right to gun ownership; very many of them had no problem with state and local laws limiting gun ownership, and the original intention of the text they enacted was solely to keep the federal government out of the matter.

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

#365

Post by WalterBright »

peteretep wrote: post #313
vageli wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is bizzare to advocate for fewer rights.

Sounds like you’re advocating for removal of all laws?

The US Constitution is about guaranteeing rights using laws.

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

#366

Post by WalterBright »

peteretep wrote: post #268
tpmx wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> weird outlier

That's what, despite its flaws, makes the US special.

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

#368

Post by WalterBright »

tomlockwood wrote: post #124
Avshalom wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It seems to me that certain people fixate on free speech because they have the luxury to be able to. It's like once they've progressed past a certain level of Maslow's hierarchy they forget about the previous levels. First step of the free speech agenda: Breathe.

Free speech was guaranteed by the US Constitution in a time where the US was a poor backwater still relying on subsistence farming.

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

#369

Post by mnouquet »

seventytwo wrote: post #325
mnouquet wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This hardly qualifies as "lots of speech".

So explain why those are ok to censor, but others aren’t…

I never said it was ok to censor, merely that it didn't qualify to "lots of".

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

#370

Post by leephillips »

blacksmith_tb wrote: post #359
leephillips wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Letting people out of prison so they can kill some more.

Not very many of them[1], though? 1: https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offen...

What am I supposed to learn from this?
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