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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

#471

Post by slowhand09 »

d110af5ccf wrote: post #400
wolverine876 wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is made worse by the fact that they're partisan political. What if the greatest threat to free speech is a political party? Should the ACLU allow that threat to advance unopposed so that the ACLU can claim to be non-partisan?

Yes, they should. The ACLU exists to defend civil rights regardless of how those rights might be used. They do not (or at least did not previously) exist in order to further a political agenda. Your freedoms should _never_ be contingent on the expression (or lack thereof) of a particular political ideology.

I would argue they used to stand for that. Historically, I think you'll find ZERO effort expended in protection of 2nd Amendment rights.

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

#472

Post by Syonyk »

tschwimmer wrote: post #210
Syonyk wrote: post #44

I wish I'd taken a photo of the "survey" they sent me the other day. I've managed to get junk mail from both sides of the political spectrum now, which has been interesting (the conservative groups have had me on their mailing list forever, and I think a subscription to Harpers got me on the liberal groups). Unfortunately, other than the issues involved, I can't really tell a big difference between fundraising styles…

That’s because the primary purpose of such a poll is not to gather data, but to influence opinion. It’s called a push poll: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Push_poll

That makes a ton more sense - thanks! I hadn't realized there was a specific term for it. New terms to use when writing my long form responses to whoever might read them...

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

#473

Post by slumdev »

Barrin92 wrote: post #354
smsm42 wrote: post #238

It's not ACLU's identity crisis, it's the Left's identity crisis. Civil rights are checks on government and institutional powers. When the left gained a massive institutional power and a lot of governmental power, it turned out it doesn't really like this power to be checked and challenged. It's one thing to fight for the free speech of people who are maybe abhorrent, but ultimately their speech won't change much, it…

no offense but since when was rights based discourse ever the focus of the left? The left's self-declared purpose is advancing material interests of ordinary and marginalized people, using collective institutions like the state to make that happen. It seems like you're complaining about the fact that the left is not conservative at heart, which is odd. It's not exactly some sort of hidden agenda that the point of the…

Some form of appeal to the rights of the individual is the cry of every political minority until it seizes power.

Some of the group's members might actually be pluralist civil libertarians at heart.

But this news demonstrates that the vast majority are not. They were authoritarians in libertarians' clothing, and today's political environment is woke enough for them to swap out their duds.

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

#474

Post by golergka »

dredmorbius wrote: post #432
smsm42 wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me make it easy for you: if you throw a firebomb at the cop car, it's not justified.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiananmen_square_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euromaidan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsa_race_massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristallnacht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Massacre I really don't think it's quite so cut and dried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-aggression_principle

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

#475

Post by frumper »

b112 wrote: post #435
frumper wrote: post #396

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So I looked up San Diego, not quite as big, but close in a liberal leaning state. Health and humans services get $2.7b vs $2.2b for public safety on a $7b total budget. https://www.sandiegocounty.gov/content/sdc/openbudget.html A smaller county I’m from in California the social services agency is about double the sheriffs dept.

It seems to me like that's reasonable? Maybe California handles it better than some places/states? I wonder if the ability to seize and sell assets, plus hand-me-downs of ex-military equipment shift those numbers, compared to a Canadian city?

I'm not sure if California does it better. I just know much of the funding comes from the federal/state government. A significant portion of the sheriff budget in my county is local taxes. Local funding is 3% for social services, the other 97% are state/federal taxes.

One of the narratives I've seen in news articles is that a writer will talk about the proportion of general funds to police vs social services. The funding levels could come from city general funds, county, state, or federal agencies. It makes sense to talk about overall funding instead of local funding for things like police and social services. People that are taking that tact are either disingenuous and slanting hard for their political gain, or ignorant of the complexities involved.

As to the hand me downs, $6b worth of equipment has been passed down to police from 1990-2017. That to me doesn't seem to be a significant amount. Averaged over 27 years across 50 states is $4m/year per state. I know it wouldn't distribute evenly, but that isn't a significant amount of value. There would likely be some unique items they couldn't get anywhere else though.

https://www.statista.com/chart/14027/how-much-is-the-polices...

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

#476

Post by HanShotFirst »

The right-wing angle of most of most of these comments, while not surprising considering the article, belies the fact that the right has a similar free speech problem to the left. In fact, the left response has been partially motivated by opposition to a notably authoritarian former president and his willing allies. Where is any discussion of things such as:

- Anti-BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) statues being written into state and local law in jurisdictions all over the country.

- Efforts to legally sanction corporations that exercise their free speech rights in opposition to certain political issues, such as repealing MLBs antitrust protection for moving the All-star game from Georgia.

- Even if there are not legal efforts, widespread outrage at similar exercises of free speech, such as the rights holders of Dr. Seuss books voluntarily deciding to discontinue publication of a small subset of his not-very popular books.

- Anti-protest bills that in some cases essentially decriminalize violent opposition to the free speech rights of people you may not agree with. (1)

- The Trump White House banning left-of-center media from attending certain events (2), and overall making numerous statements aiming to paint media they don't agree with as fake, lying, etc.

I can readily admit the left has a free speech problem, but this problem is in no way unique to the left.

(1) https://www.koco.com/article/oklahoma-legislature-oks-bill-t... (2) https://outline.com/dfhh9h

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

#477

Post by sgerenser »

birdyrooster wrote: post #118
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…

Trans politics was going okay until they took the lions share of BLM donations that was raised on the death of cisgendered straight black men. There are people that are unhappy with this distribution being called anti-trans and it’s kinda insane.

Haven’t heard about this. Googling doesn’t unearth anything either. Have any links to details on this?

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

#478

Post by kbelder »

Applejinx wrote: post #455
ravel-bar-foo wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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"?

"Journalist". Someone who writes a journal. It's not like the state issues licenses.

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

#479

Post by dredmorbius »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #445
dredmorbius wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Take it as presumed that a questioner has a direct link to the side of the state or the opposition, or both, of 1930s Germany, and answer the question rather than dodge it.

It's not 1930s Germany, throwing a firebomb at the cop car out of hysteria is not justified.

It somewhat weakens an absolute assertion "X is not justified" when a response 1) lists numerous current or recent instances in which X is argued as justified by a substantial groiup, and the further response 2) boils down to "now is not one of those times in which X is justified".

A chief weapon of both tyrant and bully is to deny their victims and targets the right to self-defence.

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

#480

Post by [deleted] »

tomlockwood wrote: post #339
batch12 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You asked which would one select. I choose the right to exist with my rights intact. Personally, I feel that the alternative isn't life or an existence worth living.

By choosing to "exist with your rights intact" you're choosing both, so you haven't answered the question. Which would you prefer if you could only have one: Life, or Freedom of Speech? Could you explain to me how you'd exercise freedom of speech, while dead?

[deleted]
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