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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

#451

Post by dragonwriter »

agarden wrote: post #315
smsm42 wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The overriding concern of the constitution is that the federal government not tromp all over the rights of the States. It would not be reasonable for the constitution to have provisions to secure the right of the federal government to arm its police, but it does seem reasonable to me to have provisions to ensure that the federal government does not interfere with the right of the several States to arm their police. H…

The policing and military functions were, because large permanent standing forces for internal and external security which would inevitably become closed societies with interests divergent from the public were the threat the 2A was to protect against, by providing an alternative that would make them unnecessary.

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

#452

Post by tomlockwood »

ponow wrote: post #447
tomlockwood wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's precisely my point. Food, water, shelter, air, and good health, are all required before one can begin to pursue the right to free speech.

No, those life essentials are not required _before_ getting the right to freedom-of-speech. Indeed, freedom of speech may be essential to discussing how to arrange a society to enable the procurement of those things. Holding off freedom of speech until "basic needs" are met is, to me, a way to guarantee that a tyrant in a poor country stays in power. Ultimately, those life necessities must be provided by oneself or b…

You can speak without air?

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

#453

Post by saagarjha »

mesozoic wrote: post #411
bradleyjg wrote: post #277

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ACLU has been the premier organization fighting for free speech since its inception. This transformation is like the staff of the Muscular Dystrophy Association deciding it really ought to put its energy into fighting herpes. There’s nothing wrong with fighting herpes, but if staffers did that they’d be stealing the organization.

It's really more like the staff of an anti AIDs org trying to organize to give as many people AIDs as possible

Well, more like refusing to help certain people suffering from AIDS on the basis that they’re “a net negative” by engaging in behaviors that spread the disease.

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

#454

Post by tomlockwood »

WalterBright wrote: post #448
tomlockwood wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't imply that at all.

History shows us it does. The people who used to run the ACLU were very well aware of that.

> What's a more fundamental right, life, or speech?

Could you help me understand how "history shows us" that this question implies that the loss of free speech can't be a threat to life?

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

#455

Post by Applejinx »

ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #347
Applejinx wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ba…

While there is a component of free speech advocates who are doing so because of partisan interests, there is another component who are sincere. (The way to tell is to ask whether they would accept censorship of their ideological foes.) > where 'free speech' is treated as sort of antifa Kryptonite I'm a bit confused by this. Whether or not free speech is repelent/harmful to antifa isn't an argument against free speech…

"a journalist"?

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

#456

Post by saagarjha »

IshKebab wrote: post #66
istorical wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As a gay man, I would have been despicable for most of the past 100+ years, but the ACLU would have defended me anyway. That version of the ACLU no longer exists. This precise thing is why it's baffling that people can suggest cancel culture is only something to complain about if you've done / said something wrong. What is considered wrong does not always age well. Sometimes we ourselves are the baddies.

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.

Discriminating who you’d like to be in a relationship with based on physical characteristics? It’s already somewhat controversial to reject a potential partner based on race, and I suspect things like height or weight might be considered petty attributes to judge people by in the future.

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

#457

Post by bradleyjg »

saila wrote: post #424
stjohnswarts wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems more and more millenials and gen z care less about the idea of free speech that differs from theirs, just like the current GOP party.

I don't understand this take. Were Boomers, for example, adamant defenders of free speech (on the whole)? Gen X might be an exception, but it seems to me that all prior generations attempted to squelch speech and other rights more so than Gen Z and Millenials.

In the Boomer and GenX generations the right wing opposed free speech and the left wing fought for it. In Millennials and GenZ it’s the opposite. If you have a group that’s mixed in age but most made up of left of center people from their respective generations then you are likely to see all the would be censures in the younger half.

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

#458

Post by brian_cunnie »

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.

I don't know how large the generational divide is _within_ the ACLU, but I know that there is a generational divide. I'm 57, and a firm believer in free speech, but my younger friends have a different viewpoint.

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

#459

Post by brian_cunnie »

BurningFrog wrote: post #137
jseliger wrote: post #2

I was a member for 10 years and stopped renewing a year or two ago, when it seemed to stop putting free speech and expression first.

I have a similar history. My replacement donations are Fire and Institute for Justice. https://www.thefire.org/ https://ij.org/

Thanks for the tip! I'm going to follow suit, and replace my donations.

I feel there's merit to a singleness-of-purpose within an organization, and ACLU's attempt to juggle "12 or 15 different values" detracts from its effectiveness.

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

#460

Post by api »

saila wrote: post #424
stjohnswarts wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems more and more millenials and gen z care less about the idea of free speech that differs from theirs, just like the current GOP party.

I don't understand this take. Were Boomers, for example, adamant defenders of free speech (on the whole)? Gen X might be an exception, but it seems to me that all prior generations attempted to squelch speech and other rights more so than Gen Z and Millenials.

The change many people are noting is that opposition to free speech used to be largely confined to the religious right. It's now much more broad.

I think part of it is the rise of online echo chambers. People act like the media they consume, and latter generations grew up with online circle jerks being the norm.

Another factor is the rise of so much bad faith disinformation coupled with the extreme virality of bullshit on social media. It seems like the truth of a story is inversely proportional to its likelihood of being shared on Facebook.

There's been a panic about the explosion of things like Qanon, neo-fascism, and anti-vaccine disinformation. I hear a lot of people questioning whether it's possible to have a liberal open society without... ironically... censorship.

I don't think censorship can be the answer, but I don't know what the answer is. The last few years has left me utterly shocked at the gullibility of human beings. Do people even think at all or are we indeed just mindless "meme machines" whose central nervous systems are vectors for replicating patterns?

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