[HN Gopher] Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an ide...
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Once a bastion of free speech, the ACLU faces an identity crisis
Author : mful
Score : 201 points
Date : 2021-06-06 18:00 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nytimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nytimes.com)
| stefantalpalaru wrote:
| See also https://taibbi.substack.com/p/is-traditional-liberalism-
| vani... :
|
| <<The old-school liberalism Glasser represents believed in that
| model of constant engagement and constant dialogue, which is
| probably what RFK was talking about when he said the ACLU
| defended the "root ideas" of the country. That optimism is
| vanishing, though, and just like Ebbets Field, a generation may
| grow up now never knowing it was there.>>
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| Free speech is table stakes for a free society. Those claiming
| otherwise are playing with fire.
| jacobsenscott wrote:
| There has never been a society where this is true. Certainly
| where I live, in the US, free speech is code for "white men are
| allowed to say whatever they want" while the speech of other
| groups can be violently repressed without consequence.
| briandear wrote:
| Except that isn't true. The only people being violently
| repressed at the moment are Capitol protestors who have been
| held in solitary confinement for months without even being
| charged. And many of them are white.
| dv_dt wrote:
| I think many a BLM protester was violently repressed even
| as most of the were peaceful and well within excercise
| their free speech rights.
|
| For both the 1/6 protesters and BLM protesters there were
| some subgroup that destroyed property and exceeded what
| many would consider reasonable speech boundaries - but that
| is something where it make take some time to fully
| understand how it plays out individually in legal cases.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| dmitrygr wrote:
| _IF_ you are right, that just means we need MORE free speech
| for those who don 't have it, NOT less for those who do!
| yhoneycomb wrote:
| Ironic that there are so many deleted comments on a post
| about free speech
| Applejinx wrote:
| 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 bad faith, because they have absolutely no
| intention of furthering free speech. It is purely a
| tactic.
| eli_gottlieb wrote:
| >To which David Cole, the national legal director of the
| A.C.L.U., rejoined in an interview: "Everything that Black
| Lives Matter does is possible because of the First
| Amendment."
| ttt0 wrote:
| Only if "allowed to say whatever they want" is code for
| "fired" and "violently repressed" is code for "promoted by
| corporations and media". I've gotta say, very interesting
| perspective nonetheless.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Yet here you are. Using your free speech to spread your anti-
| white message. Your voice is very repressed indeed. Shame you
| can't just say what you really want.
| pharmakom wrote:
| I don't see how the message is anti-white. The claim seems
| to be that "free speech" has become something of a dog
| whistle. It's certainly true where I am, and as a supporter
| of free speech I dislike the association!
| AwaAwa wrote:
| If 'free speech' is a 'dog whistle' what would be a
| viable alternative to get the same ideal, without falling
| afoul of a shift in the 'dog whistle' goalpost?
| Causality1 wrote:
| Everything is a dog whistle if you're insecure enough.
| Recall the "It's ok to be white" posters.
| tpmx wrote:
| Well, now it's flagged so much that it actually is removed.
| I can only read "[flagged]".
|
| I really dislike this particular HN design decision. Reddit
| handles this case much better.
| ttt0 wrote:
| You can show dead or flagged posts by turning on showdead
| in settings.
| tpmx wrote:
| Wow. It actually works, too.
|
| Makes me think of the "Beware of the Leopard" Douglas
| Adams quote: https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/40705-but-
| the-plans-were-on...
|
| Still, it's removed for the vast majority of readers, by
| design. That's how defaults work, particularly when the
| settings page is so vague.
| ttt0 wrote:
| You can always vouch for the comment if you think it was
| flagged unfairly. I think each comment can be
| "resurrected" only once though.
| tpmx wrote:
| You can only vouch for a dead comment if you do this
| showdead settings change. (Otherwise you can't see it.)
| [deleted]
| simonh wrote:
| Downvoting is a form of free speech too. You have the
| freedom to say what you like, but there's no obligation
| on anyone else to listen to it or like it, or publish and
| distribute it.
| jetrink wrote:
| However, in any community where the down vote is used for
| mere disagreement, there is no room for dissenting
| opinions. An open discourse requires that people are
| willing to listen to those whom they disagree with. Down
| voting liberally is counter to that principle.
| 6foot4_82iq wrote:
| Vile racists like jacobsenscott are undeserving of
| nuanced discussion.
| [deleted]
| dv_dt wrote:
| I disagree. Downvoting for disagreement is a way of
| saving time in the discussion from reading lower value
| comments. To much low value content can mask more
| thoughtful discussion.
| tpmx wrote:
| You're conflating downvoting with flagging. Enough
| flagging + default reader settings on HN = distributed
| ability to censor HN stories/comments. Of course this is
| all by design - the moderators have been clear that
| they're not optimizing for freedom of speech, but rather
| interesting discussions.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| You can enable showdead in your settings, and even low
| contrast messages can be spoken aloud by your friendly
| neighborhood TTS or pasted somewhere friendly for your
| reading displeasure.
|
| Not to say that ample downvotes don't show some
| particular biases of the HN crowd, but it's not like
| those comments disappear and you can make your own mind
| if they are low quality drivel or inconvenient dissent.
| tux3 wrote:
| It is, quite literally, like comments disappear.
|
| That's intentional, not an exageration.
| WesolyKubeczek wrote:
| Well, if they did disappear completely, you'd have no way
| to retrieve their contents. They are extremely faded,
| true, but I've spent many of my childhood years watching
| cartoons on an old B&W television set with an extremely
| faded CRT, so I may be a bit desensitized.
|
| I'm not overflowing with boundless adoration for the HN
| forums (I've heard someone calling them "like Reddit, but
| made of galaxy brains" and it made me laugh out loud) and
| feel that the overall crowd here does display certain
| biases and flaws (myself included, of course), and that
| it has a set of wrongthink taboos for which you can be
| downvoted into oblivion, but at least there is a setting
| which will show you the downvoted, flagged, and dead
| comments at all so you can see for yourself and make your
| own judgement if it was fair.
|
| Unsurprisingly, most of the flagged/dead content is a
| sort of toilet humor, or some memespeak interjections
| devoid of content at all. Some messages are interesting,
| but they are few and far between. (I enjoy reading
| dead/flagged stuff nevertheless.)
|
| There exist forums which moderate messages in a way that
| the inconvenient/wrongthink/irrelevant/taboo/spam content
| disappears along with all the replies, as if it never
| appeared there. I doubt you'd want it quite like that.
| hayst4ck wrote:
| Let's substitute into your sentence, a statement I feel is
| equivalent (please let me know if you think it's an unfair
| characterization):
|
| "Any government regulation of speech or published material is
| destructive to free society."
|
| Hopefully you immediately think of exceptions: illicit
| pornography, fire in a theater, ingredient labels/active
| ingredient listings, directly false marketing, misrepresenting
| contracts, direct physical threats/"fighting words," convincing
| someone to commit suicide, intellectual property related
| speech, advertisements to kids, speech in the military, speech
| under NDA's, security clearance related information, publicly
| accusing someone of a crime they didn't commit. Maybe you might
| think speech is different whether it's from a citizen or non
| citizen. Maybe it's different from a corporation and a person.
| Maybe it's different if speech is done in good faith (because a
| person honestly believes their words) or bad faith (because
| someone wants to manipulate somebody). Maybe the mode of speech
| matters, whether it's internet, radio, spoken word, telephone,
| or otherwise.
|
| Referring to free speech in indirect terms creates a problem,
| because it denies the grey. Free speech arguments are all about
| determining the correct gradient of grey for society. Being
| able to identify and understand grey area is a strong signal of
| being informed. The grey area is why people who are
| knowledgeable are unsure and people who know nothing are
| confident. One sees complexities, the other is blind to them.
|
| Every person on the planet being able to publish a message that
| can be read by every human (twitter) is something the human
| race has never had to face before. Facebook can choose to
| promote hateful speech with algorithms and incite hatred
| through doing so, gaining them engagement (addiction) in the
| process. Is that healthy for society? Is fox news healthy? On
| the other side is CNN (fake news?) healthy? Should China/Russia
| be able to purchase American airtime? Should American
| celebrities and businesses be protected from having their
| speech coerced by foreign powers?
|
| Reasonable people can come to different conclusions on what it
| means for speech to be "free", what counts as speech, what
| context around the speech matters, and what entities should get
| "free speech" protection.
| digianarchist wrote:
| 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.
| mnouquet wrote:
| The 1st Amendment is a hell of a lot more than freedom of the
| press.
| pochamago wrote:
| 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
| fvdessen wrote:
| Can journalists visit Guantanamo?
| pochamago wrote:
| There are limitations, but yes.
| https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-
| world/world/americas... I would also personally draw a
| line between access to a military prison and what is
| effectively a refugee camp
| grzm wrote:
| As far as I can tell, yes. There are rules regarding
| access that were written in 2010. The most recent info I
| found on the matter (during my admittedly limited
| internet searches) are in relation to new regulations
| that were introduced and then removed in August, 2019:
|
| - https://pressfreedomtracker.us/all-incidents/amid-
| backlash-d...
|
| - https://theintercept.com/2019/08/30/guantanamo-bay-
| press-res...
|
| If you're aware of more recent information, do share. As
| I said, this is just the results from a cursory search
| and may not reflect the current situation.
| slowmovintarget wrote:
| That's the "trains run on time" argument, though.
| tolbish wrote:
| In terms of countries, what are some examples of free
| societies that fully embrace free speech?
| barry-cotter wrote:
| This isn't an argument about how good political scientists
| think journalists have it. The dispute is about free speech
| rights. For the people, plebeians of no special importance,
| not a priestly class with graduate degrees who have been
| anointed journalists by getting their Masters from the right
| J school, or getting an Ivy League degree.
| SahAssar wrote:
| So what would you choose as a measurement of how free
| speech is in a country? Usually the press is chosen since
| it's job in a functioning free country is to scrutinize the
| state and other powers. So if the press is free and it is
| free to distribute it's voice unimpeded by corporate or
| state influence then it is considered a more free state.
| mudil wrote:
| ACLU has been subverted by political correctness, mob mentality
| of internet, and the do-gooder activists. ACLU is a perfect
| example on how we ended up in the through the looking glass
| world.
| creamytaco wrote:
| One has to wonder if the useful idiots (according to Lenin)
| that are propagating this wave of ideological censorship and
| intolerance realize what they are in for. The powers that be
| must surely be extremely pleased to see such hated - by
| corporate and financial kleptocracy - liberal bastions as free
| speech and open debate dismantled and destroyed. I fear it is
| already too late.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I'm hoping that it's self-correcting. The right has
| (belatedly) starting using this lunacy against the left. I
| guess the best we can hope for is that the illiberal masses
| on one side act as a counterweight against the illiberal
| masses on the other until they rediscover the purpose of the
| liberalism. In the meanwhile, for anyone who wasn't stupid
| enough to forget, the best you can do is try and stay out of
| the way.
|
| I'm delighted to have found a job that's mission-focused
| enough that this nonsense doesn't come close to touching the
| people doing real work in the way it (stochastically) can at
| places with more slack, like Google. We pay a tax, in the
| form of HR playing masturbatory language games with each
| other, but I've never once had to care about it.
| DennisAleynikov wrote:
| short answer is no
| dang wrote:
| Please don't take HN further into ideological flamewar. Even
| in this thread, your comment stands out as a noticeable step
| in that direction, and we're trying to go the opposite way
| here. What to do instead: (1) turn down boilerplate rhetoric
| and name-calling; (2) turn up relevant details and pertinent
| _specific_ information.
|
| https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor.
| ..
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| dale_glass wrote:
| That's not what I get from reading it. You could give that a
| try.
|
| Here's an interesting bit:
|
| > The A.C.L.U. of Virginia argued that this violated the free
| speech rights of the far-right groups and won, preserving the
| right for the group to parade downtown. With too few police
| officers who reacted too passively, the demonstration turned
| ugly and violent; in addition to fistfights, the far right
| loosed anti-Semitic and racist chants and a right-wing
| demonstrator plowed his car into counterprotesters, killing a
| woman. Dozens were injured in the tumult.
|
| > Revulsion swelled within the A.C.L.U., and many assailed its
| executive director, Anthony Romero, and legal director, Mr.
| Cole, as privileged and clueless. The A.C.L.U. unfurled new
| guidelines that suggested 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 "offense to marginalized groups."
|
| That's not political correctness, that's ideals colliding head-
| on with the grim reality. The real world isn't a Disney movie,
| and doing the "right thing" doesn't magically make everything
| work out positively.
|
| So the Virginia ACLU defended the freedom of speech of Nazis,
| and the Nazis did what Nazis do and ran over people they didn't
| like, killing a woman. At that point a lot of people started
| asking themselves "Are we really being a positive influence?".
| And a conflict began.
|
| I see this as a conflict between deontology and
| consequentialism. Deontology says "free speech was defended,
| the outcome doesn't matter. Let's keep going". But it turns out
| that deontology isn't that great of a fit for the real world,
| because people do care about consequences very intensely. Few
| have the iron-clad nerve needed to say "an innocent died as the
| consequence of my/my group's actions, and nevertheless I
| wouldn't change a thing".
|
| I think the major difference now vs the 70s is that news spread
| far wider, and consequences are communicated far better and
| more viscerally.
| Applejinx wrote:
| All of this. When the reality is that a political movement
| will operate in bad faith and intentionally, aggressively
| exploit any such ideological fulcrum as a weakness in a
| coordinated way, clinging to deontology makes you a knowing
| ally... which means you have taken sides.
|
| I can see why this discussion's turned ugly, but it can't NOT
| be ugly. None of this is hypothetical. It's blown up because
| the aforementioned Nazis worked out that they could compel
| the ACLU to effectively become a Nazi ally and devote their
| forces to the cause of terrorism. Under the ground rules of
| what the ACLU is, if properly managed, the organization can
| be used to clear the way for violence and actions that are
| not on brand for the ACLU, and not what it thinks of as
| 'civil liberty'.
|
| This is a clever sort of meta-gaming thing, but it's also an
| obvious existential crisis for the ACLU to the extent that
| the ACLU cares at all about terrorism. I think there's an
| assumption that we can define some things with a bright line
| never to be infringed upon, and that there will never be
| exploits to undermine our assumptions.
|
| And I mean, that's not even true for mathematical proof, much
| less free-speech liberalism.
| Supermancho wrote:
| > clinging to deontology makes you a knowing ally... which
| means you have taken sides
|
| Nope. It becomes a side-taking issue when sides are taken
| in a self-directed manner, rather than indiscriminate
| support. eg When the UN medics treat warlord soldiers after
| they have been left behind, the UN has not "taken sides".
| FeepingCreature wrote:
| > I see this as a conflict between deontology and
| consequentialism. Deontology says "free speech was defended,
| the outcome doesn't matter. Let's keep going". But it turns
| out that deontology isn't that great of a fit for the real
| world, because people do care about consequences very
| intensely. Few have the iron-clad nerve needed to say "an
| innocent died as the consequence of my/my group's actions,
| and nevertheless I wouldn't change a thing".
|
| I see this all the time in the so-called "paradox of
| tolerance", which is of course only a paradox if you assume a
| consequentialist framework as unstated background assumption.
|
| Personally, I feel asking people to make personal
| consequentialist decisions gives them far too much leeway to
| bring personal bias in, so I'm in favor of deontological
| freedom of speech - on consequentialist grounds.
| dale_glass wrote:
| > I see this all the time in the so-called "paradox of
| tolerance", which is of course only a paradox if you assume
| a consequentialist framework as unstated background
| assumption.
|
| Everyone is consequentialist in some measure. It's in human
| nature.
|
| In the end, we all want to be happy and to enjoy life, and
| to be proud of our work, and as a result we care when
| things get in the way of that.
|
| You can see plenty evidence of this in modern times. Eg, to
| pick something a bit less dramatic, Brexit didn't work out
| so well for a lot of fishermen that supported it, and it's
| not hard to find news of them being very upset by this and
| demanding change. It turns out having sovereignty doesn't
| make one all that happy when it threatens one's own
| livelihood.
| calcifer wrote:
| > At that point a lot of people started asking themselves
| "Are we really being a positive influence?". And a conflict
| began.
|
| Those people were clearly in the wrong though. After all, why
| join a _civil liberties union_ if your support for said
| liberties is conditional on your whims?
| dale_glass wrote:
| 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
| despicable person's right to hold a protest when they're
| powerless. But when people start dying that gets a lot
| harder to justify.
| calcifer wrote:
| > 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 principle_ face no such
| dilemma.
| dale_glass wrote:
| This isn't how most people actually work. Most of us see
| principles as a means to an end, even if we don't say so,
| or initially don't admit it.
|
| It's kind of a fairy tale of the kind Disney sells you:
| if you do the right thing, everything works out for the
| best. We like that idea because simplicity is appealing,
| but the real world is complicated and conflicts with such
| nice notions.
|
| In Disney movies when you do the right thing, it saves
| the world in the end.
|
| In the real world when you do the right thing, sometimes
| all you achieve is nazis running over a crowd, and you
| end up with a crisis of conscience and not much to show
| for it.
| refenestrator wrote:
| Not sure if you're aware, but way back when the ACLU
| supported Nazis right to march on pragmatic as well as
| principled grounds.
|
| If WE are stopping the BAD GUYS from marching on OUR
| turf, then what precedent does that set for permitting a
| civil rights march in Selma?
| seventytwo wrote:
| Strange how no one bats an eye when any other advocacy group
| defines in their own way their goals or values, but when it's the
| ACLU that does it, people lose their minds.
|
| No one cares that the NRA only gives a crap about half of 2A. No
| one cares that the federalist Society has a very specific view of
| the judiciary... but when the ACLU defines a cause in their own
| way, people go nuts with accusations of hypocrisy because it
| doesn't line up with their own personal definition of "civil
| liberties".
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Despite the sad loss of the ACLU as an institution that cares
| about civil liberties, we can remain hopeful due to other
| organizations like FIRE.
|
| https://www.thefire.org
| [deleted]
| Nicksil wrote:
| >Despite the sad loss of the ACLU as an institution that cares
| about civil liberties, we can remain hopeful due to other
| organizations like FIRE.
|
| You're just going to leave it there? What/who is FIRE? This
| isn't one of those unique words easily discovered during a web
| search.
| myWindoonn wrote:
| FIRE is mentioned in the original article, including a
| contrast between ACLU and FIRE.
| OrvalWintermute wrote:
| The civil liberties background of Harvey Silverglate, one
| of the founders of FIRE, is quite interesting. Apparently
| he used to be with the ACLU until they switched direction.
|
| Source(s):
|
| http://www.harveysilverglate.com/about-harvey
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Silverglate
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| From context, I'd guess they are an organization who the
| parent commentator believes represents civil liberties better
| than the ACLU.
|
| It seems they also edited their comment to include a link -
| seems pretty reasonable to me.
| Nicksil wrote:
| >It seems they also edited their comment to include a link
| - seems pretty reasonable to me.
|
| Well of course this was done _after_ my comment.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| "fire org" and "fire civil liberties" both return the correct
| result in the first ranking. It really isn't that difficult
| notwedtm wrote:
| Perhaps, but then YOU are not doing it the service it
| deserves by simply slapping it in there and not providing
| any context.
|
| This is the problem with the whole "DO YOUR OWN RESEARCH"
| retort that lots of political arguments deteriorate into.
| If YOU have already done said research, and you have an
| informed opinion from said research, then you should share
| it directly in the conversation at hand.
|
| Not only do you avoid looking like a jerk by trying to end
| a conversation with "look it up" or something similar; you
| are also able to potentially be the reason someone changes
| their mind on the subject because you evangelized something
| that you believe in instead of leaving them potentially
| thinking "People who like FIRE must be jerks."
| wutbrodo wrote:
| > Not only do you avoid looking like a jerk by trying to
| end a conversation with "look it up" or something similar
|
| What on Earth are you talking about? Your whole comment
| is in reference to rebuffing a request for more details
| with "look it up". _Nobody here is doing that_. The
| original comment mentioned FIRE without describing it;
| presumably you don't think every mention of an
| organization must come with an executive summary? The
| response then whined about how the previous comment left
| them with an ungoogleable dead-end. My comment simply
| said that, with context, it was far from ungoogleable
| (and thus the aggressive tone towards the parent comment
| wasn't warranted). The reason I personally didn't provide
| more information is that I myself am not that familiar
| with FIRE, certainly not to the extent that I'd be able
| to summarize why they're an adequate substitute for the
| ACLU.
|
| > you evangelized something that you believe in instead
| of leaving them potentially thinking "People who like
| FIRE must be jerks
|
| This and the rest of your comment is a perfect example of
| the decay of discourse behind things like the ACLU's
| troubles. Instead of trying to understand what they read,
| people like you are desperate to pattern-match to some
| imagined ill and then mistake your hysterical emotional
| response for moral reasoning.
| xbar wrote:
| I suspect you did not read the article.
| Nimitz14 wrote:
| RTFA
| wearywanderer wrote:
| Type FIRE into wikipedia and you get a list of 13 choices.
| One of those 13 matches the context of this conversation:
| _Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a civil
| liberties organization in the US_
| evv555 wrote:
| There's also fair which has significant overlap.
| https://www.fairforall.org/
|
| "We defend civil liberties and rights guaranteed to each
| individual, including freedom of speech and expression, equal
| protection under the law, and the right to personal privacy."
| UncleMeat wrote:
| FIRE is a joke if you care about bipartisanship.
|
| I know a _lot_ of faculty who have been attacked or even fired
| for "left wing" research and FIRE hasn't spread a peep. Heck,
| I know people who've been put on blast by Hannity and received
| death threats from strangers and had their students call them
| slurs in legally protected channels just because the kids know
| they can. Silence from FIRE.
| asabjorn wrote:
| Can you please provide examples where you think fire should
| have stepped in?
|
| Universities are hardly right-wing institutions that fire
| academics for left-wing research, quite to the contrary
| "academics" too often engage in indoctrination instead of
| teaching students to engage a subject to mastery. We are at
| such a bad point that even harvard is so stooped in dialectic
| that it argue 2+2 is not always 4, something an elementary
| kid knows is bullshit.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| It'd reveal my identity. More broadly, these faculty
| members include researchers who work in:
|
| * climate science (death threats, widespread media attacks,
| attempts from politicians to cancel grants)
|
| * digital privacy (death threats)
|
| * history of policing (death threats, attacks from Hannity,
| attacks from the Hoover institute trying to prevent her
| thesis from being accepted)
|
| * history of women in medieval europe (see below)
|
| * US civil war history (attacks from state politicians)
|
| The most extreme case is the person who does history of
| women in medieval europe. Organized groups of students take
| her class and are clearly trained in precisely the places
| where they can write hate speech specifically focused at
| her but also just general hate speech against women but
| have privacy laws make it impossible for them to actually
| be associated with their writing. This is a tactic designed
| to get her to slip up and breach some sort of privacy
| protection, upon which time they immediately bring legal
| action. I'll let you guess whether FIRE is protecting her
| in the legal action.
|
| Universities are hardly right-wing institutions, true. But
| that doesn't mean that FIRE is a bipartisan institution.
|
| If you want a nationally recognized example, go check out
| what is going on at UNC Chapel Hill now.
| asabjorn wrote:
| I am not sure how I am supposed to get your identity from
| you providing a few published examples.
|
| The UNC Chapel Hill case is a bad example as Nikole
| Hannah-Jones engaged in divisive political activism in
| her role instead of academic rigor and is the brains
| behind major indoctrination efforts such as the 1619
| project. Someone like her that teach students _what_ to
| think instead of _how_ should not get tenure, and does
| not meet the academic rigor to teach.
|
| Calls for academic freedom has been used to subvert
| university resources from academic pursuits to political
| activism. This was never the intention behind protections
| of academic freedom and is a corruption of the academic
| pursuit.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| So much for free speech then. Clearly some kinds are good
| and some are "divisive political activism" that don't
| deserve any kind of protection.
| klyrs wrote:
| Is discussion of Critical Race Theory an exercise of free
| speech?
| fallingknife wrote:
| Teachers are employees, and freedom of speech has never
| been recognized in that context. For example, it would be
| kind of ridiculous if a science teacher was allowed to
| teach students flat earth theory because of freedom of
| speech.
| fallingknife wrote:
| How would FIRE defend these people from these things.
| Death threats are already illegal, and a police issue.
| The rest of what you are describing sounds like things
| that are protected by the first amendment rights of those
| people / groups who disagree with the conclusions of the
| researchers.
| javagram wrote:
| https://www.thefire.org/fire-statement-unc-trustees-
| alleged-...
|
| FIRE issued a statement about investigating UNC chapel
| hill. Do you have any information that NHJ approached
| them to represent her in a lawsuit and was turned down?
|
| Your other examples are pretty vague but if they are
| secret enough that you can't link to them, why would you
| expect FIRE to have learned of them? Is this inside
| information you have about the professor reaching out to
| FIRE and being turned down?
| UncleMeat wrote:
| I'd expect FIRE to have learned of them because the
| affected individuals sought legal support from a variety
| of institutions and organizations.
| jon37 wrote:
| I see HN still has a policy of deleting all political content
| except for political articles whose thesis is "the left is anti-
| free-speech."
| EGreg wrote:
| Freedom of speech is often a euphemism these days for capitalism
| of megaphones. I actually want to move away from celebrity
| culture and privately owned platforms, means of distribution, and
| audiences, and towards platforms based on collaboration, where
| people have to duke it out and address all serious arguments
| before the public sees it. It might take slightly longer but our
| society wouldn't be so divided. Individual people can't all be
| expected to be experts on climate change, vaccines, 5G and so on.
|
| I give an extensive explanation on the economics of free speech
| here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M8HbvC6vqIY
|
| I interviewed Noam Chomsky on it last week here:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUPZ8rSESZo
|
| And we are building it here (sorry for the bad design so far):
| https://rational.app/
| verytrivial wrote:
| Liberalism and Identity Politics never really sorted out their
| relationship, and it turns out the latter won Twitter (and
| created excellent foot-holds for bad-actors doing information
| "warfare" now everyone has social media welded directly to their
| brains.)
|
| Edit: A reply would be nice if down voting. The examples the
| first subject in the article uses are implicitly comparing
| liberty of speech to protected/disenfranchised classes or
| characteristics of people, and how ACLU seems to have changed
| disposition here. That's my point. My use of Identity Politics is
| not baiting -- it's a well studied topic in the social sciences.
| kbelder wrote:
| I honestly think they were compromised from the very beginning,
| with their mission of "defending every civil right... except the
| 2nd amendment, we don't like that one."
|
| But they still fought lots of commendable battles, sticking up
| for people that nobody else would. I think that's what they've
| lost... they would be scared to stick up for somebody that might
| get the wrong people upset with them.
| this2shallPass wrote:
| I have far from an encyclopedic knowledge of the ACLU and it's
| history, so I could be wrong. I had thought they have in the
| past done some 2nd amendment cases, and continue to do so.
| Their position is less strong, maximalist, whatever you want to
| call it than some other groups e.g. the NRA. They also don't
| see the need to focus a lot of resources on those types of
| cases when other groups do that, and effectively.
| seoaeu wrote:
| My recollection is they distanced themselves from gun rights
| cases after defending some right-wing group's right to hold
| an armed protest... at which one of the group members
| murdered a counter protestor.
| briandear wrote:
| Exempt that protestor wasn't killed by a gun. Yet
| surprisingly, the ACLU hasn't come out against the
| automobile.
| mjmahone17 wrote:
| It's probably reasonable for an organization to choose not to
| conflate the civil liberties they stand for with amendments. In
| an ideal world the people would happily eliminate or modify
| laws that do harm, and of the existing US civil liberties, the
| 2nd amendment is likely the most debatable on whether it is a
| net win for liberty.
| briandear wrote:
| Liberty is a result of the second amendment. The 2nd
| Amendment ensures there remains a 1st. Disarming a population
| is the first act of tyranny. Check the history books for
| countless examples. The Soviets, the Nazis, the Communist
| Chinese, and on and on -- they all had gun control as a key
| early policy.
| gotoeleven wrote:
| The American Civil Liberties Approved by Left Wing Twitter
| Mobs Union has a nice ring to it.
| vmception wrote:
| Even the most extreme proponents of the 2nd amendment have
| examples of it working
|
| The various police forces during the capital seige - in
| January, remember how that was this year - said they used
| less force because the participants were armed and knew they
| could shoot back
|
| Their _whole thing_ is that they will make the state think
| twice, whereas the peaceful and unarmed protestors get
| knocked around with no recourse
|
| Without examples, its easy to think they are advocating for
| actually killing government officials with their guns in
| order to get their way, but after a year of examples I can at
| least say I have experienced competing and conflicting ideas
| in action
| Retric wrote:
| The ACLU's mission isn't about defending the constitution,
| plenty of other organizations step up for that. Their scope
| includes all those liberties which don't show up on the
| constitution which is a much larger issue.
|
| "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, _except_ as"
|
| Many people just have a problem with word _except_ on that
| line and so many other places in society. As such the
| ACLU's goal is to push for improvements not simply defend
| the current situation.
| drewrv wrote:
| I don't buy this argument. One of the reasons police are
| quicker to open fire on people here in the US is because so
| many people have guns.
|
| Countries with fewer guns have fewer armed police officers
| and fewer policemen shootings.
| vmception wrote:
| Yes, fire on individuals, not on groups.
|
| These are separate issues. All Americans experience a
| collective punishment from law enforcement because they
| _might_ have "a" gun on them.
| javagram wrote:
| > The various police forces during the capital seige - in
| January, remember how that was this year - said they used
| less force because the participants were armed and knew
| they could shoot back
|
| I think this is mostly inaccurate? The Jan 6
| protestors/rioters mostly left their guns at home due to
| fear of D.C.'s strict gun laws. Even the oathkeepers
| planned to keep their guns in Virginia and ferry them over
| by boat only once "called up as militia".
|
| The Capitol police are used to dealing with protestors and
| demonstrators and have never opened fire on a crowd with
| live ammo before. The one time it did look like a rioter
| (Ashlii Babbit) was going to get too close to members of
| Congress they used their firearm without hesitation.
| vmception wrote:
| DC Metro Police were also there
|
| If I find the quotes again from officer(s) interviews
| I'll link you
| mindslight wrote:
| With this new trajectory, they could end up picking up the 2nd
| amendment by fighting for justice for Breonna Taylor. The NRA
| seems to have dropped the ball.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Unless I am confusing cases Breonna Taylor did not shoot at
| the police or even have a gun.
| mindslight wrote:
| 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.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| 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.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| "ACLU Position:
|
| Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the
| security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position
| that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather
| than an individual right."
|
| https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment
| akvadrako wrote:
| That's a pretty stupid position, since it's pretty clear the
| 2nd amendment is saying that it's a right of "the people".
| The preface is to explain the reason it's a right, that is to
| form the Militia, which is commonly understood to consist of
| most able-bodied men.
|
| If individuals aren't allowed to own and practice with
| weapons normally, then when it's needed the Militia will not
| be "well-regulated", as in well-armed or trained.
|
| The 2nd amendment is really very important to all civil
| liberties, since otherwise there is nothing to stop a
| repressive government from taking control.
| himinlomax wrote:
| Look, you're entitled to interpret the 2nd amendment the
| way you do, but the fact is that it is a short bit of text
| and yet it includes the words "a well regulated militia."
| It's perfectly reasonable to believe those four words are
| there for a good reason. Gun rights activists choose to
| ignore those words. If their position deserve any respect,
| the one that does not ignore them evidently deserves at
| least as much.
| calvinmorrison wrote:
| Its interesting to look at my States constitution, which
| predates the federal constitution.
|
| " Sect. XXI. That the right of the citizens to bear arms,
| in defence of themselves and the state, shall not be
| questioned. "
| akvadrako wrote:
| You're being obtuse; I explained why those words were
| there.
| csande17 wrote:
| You could write a similar article about a lot of nonprofits,
| lately. "Once a Developer of Web Browsers, Mozilla Faces an
| Identity Crisis." "Once a Free Online Encyclopedia, the Wikimedia
| Foundation Faces an Identity Crisis."
| CerealFounder wrote:
| I think theres probably an interesting full book here examining
| exactly how and why "cause based" orgs become all end up
| looking the same once they cross a certain threshold. Power,
| influence and money seem to be a magnet for more of itself, so
| it fundamentally shifts the guiding principal of each org as it
| grows bigger.
|
| Like why do no-profits and charities seem to corrupt their aim
| at a greater speed than for profit businesses?
| fallingknife wrote:
| People of the type needed to run an organization like the
| ACLU are rare. You need people who are willing to stand on
| principal even when it makes them unpopular, and who are
| skilled enough that they could be making a lot of money for
| themselves in the corporate sector, but are willing to forgo
| that. The failure mode of this is attention seeking
| "activist" types, and people who don't have the skills to cut
| it in the for-profit world. For profit businesses also have a
| failure mode like this too, where the initial leadership who
| got there off being innovative and willing to take risks are
| replaced by boring MBA types who are just there for the
| paychecks. But in this case, the people taking over are both
| more in line with the objectives of the organization (to make
| money) and more competent than the incompetent / activist
| types who take over non-profits.
| michael1999 wrote:
| I'm not sure they do. Restaurant owners make bad choices,
| start skimping on food, etc. all the time. The difference is
| that the customers notice and the restaurants go out of
| business. But political organizations "produce" nebulous
| goods which are difficult to value or sometimes even
| understand. So corrupt civil organizations can continue much
| longer and a practical business.
| javagram wrote:
| The ACLU going "corrupt" is arguably much better business
| for them since they can more effectively harvest donations
| from politically engaged partisans on the left - their
| fundraising has been supercharged since 2016. Right-wing
| partisans weren't giving to them much anyway so more
| closely aligning with a side is all upside from a financial
| perspective.
| philipkglass wrote:
| _Like why do no-profits and charities seem to corrupt their
| aim at a greater speed than for profit businesses?_
|
| It seems inherent to the different aims of charities and
| businesses. Nucor Corporation has a nominal lineage from
| "Nuclear Corporation of America Inc." incorporated in the
| 1950s. But its actual business has had nothing to do with
| nuclear technology in 50+ years; it found more success in the
| steel business. Shareholders aren't mad that the company
| isn't following its original nuclear technology mission since
| it found a better business. There's nothing to "corrupt" when
| a business goes after different markets.
|
| But some donors _will_ be upset if a charity focused on one
| mission broadens or deviates from its original mission. Some
| people may also be happy with these sorts of change, of
| course, but mission changes tend to be more controversial
| with charities than with for-profit companies.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Non-profits and charities perform at the behest of the whims
| of a small number of rich donors instead of needing to get
| through the reality filter of making a profit in the broad
| consumer marketplace.
| AcerbicZero wrote:
| You could, but then you'd be missing the point, while also
| highlighting the root problem with organizational changes that
| directly impact the original stated goal(s).
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Organisational drift isn't a new thing:
|
| _In Sheldon Messinger's analysis of an old-age pressure group
| formed in the 1930s, the Townsend organization, he shows how
| the organization managed to stay alive by transforming its
| political goal of increased support for the aged through a
| radical economic plan into social goals of fellowship and card
| playing and fiscal goals of selling vitamins and patent
| medicines to its members. The unanticipated consequence of
| fund-raising techniques based on selling items, rather than
| political programs, was to turn the organization into a social
| club. The changing social and political scene also, of course,
| produced a change in goals. In a somewhat similar vein, Joseph
| Gusfield shows how the Women's Christian Temperance Union
| (WCTU) had to abandon its attack on drinking per se after
| prohibition was repealed and change to an attack on middle-
| class mores and life-styles in general, in order to serve the
| needs of its members. Mayer Zald outlines how the Young Men's
| Christian Association (YMCA) changed from helping poor migrants
| from the farm or abroad, who found the city a fearsome
| experience, to providing recreation for middle-class suburban
| youths. The Christian ethics of the early period, designed to
| sustain the faith of helpless people, gave way to a bland ethic
| of the American way of life; the practical help and training
| changed from information and techniques for survival in the
| urban jungle to physical culture and recreation for youths and
| adults with leisure time on their hands. In both cases, the
| organization survived the environmental changes and found a new
| mission._
|
| -- Charles Perrow, _Complex Organizations_ (1972, 1979, 1986)
|
| https://www.worldcat.org/title/complex-organizations-a-criti...
|
| The period described largely spans the first half of the 20th
| century.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Don't forget Amnesty International.
| tpmx wrote:
| Edit: _placeholder_
|
| (Decided it was unfair to throw a large org under the bus
| without being able spend a few hours to defend the claim.)
| deadalus wrote:
| Or Anti-Defamation League.
| this2shallPass wrote:
| Citation / explanation needed.
|
| ADL's stated mission is "To stop the defamation of the
| Jewish people, and to secure justice and fair treatment
| to all..." It seems like the ADL has legitimate work it
| can be doing, unless you think Jews and all people are
| treated fairly. I don't think you're saying that, and I
| do think you're saying it's not doing the work that it
| could be doing. Could you say more about that?
|
| "Of the 1,715 victims of anti-religious hate crimes:
| 60.2 percent were victims of crimes motivated by
| offenders' anti-Jewish bias."
|
| https://ucr.fbi.gov/hate-crime/2019/topic-pages/victims
|
| Anti-Jewish hate-crimes make up a majority of the anti-
| religious hate crimes in the US. (You could argue they
| should be classified as "Racial/ethnicity/ancestry bias"
| but that's another discussion).
|
| The statistics aren't perfect - not every crime or
| possible crime is reported to law enforcement, and not
| every law enforcement agency in the US shares hate crime
| information with the federal government. A recent law
| changed that so it's required instead of optional, so
| likely more will be doing so in the future.
| lliamander wrote:
| ADL has engaged in lobbying for policies that
| unconstitutionally conflict with the first ammendment.
|
| Whatever their legitimate grievances, that's not an
| acceptable response.
| this2shallPass wrote:
| I think you're referring to BDS and anti-BDS laws. Is
| that right? Are you referring to something else in
| addition to those?
|
| Do anti-BDS laws mean the ADL has an identity crisis? Or
| they should be having one? They seem related to their
| mission.
|
| I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not an expert in the first
| amendment, its case law, or anti-BDS laws. You might be
| right that some or all anti-BDS laws violate some first
| amendment right in some way. I don't know which analogy
| is the right one to apply to anti-BDS laws, something
| different legal scholars and lawyers argue about. It
| seems like reasonable people can disagree about what is
| constitutional and what is not here. Maybe the supreme
| court will rule on it specifically, and even then it
| might still be the case that reasonable people can
| disagree.
| wearywanderer wrote:
| The assertion that early 20th century Georgian (American
| South) police permitted a poor black man to get away with
| the rape and murder of a young white girl never really
| made much sense to me in the first place. The ADL seems
| dodgy from the start. I think the ADL has gotten away
| with framing Jim Conley.
| insert_coin wrote:
| Free speech is the only "right" that matters. Thoughtcrime should
| not be allowed to be prosecuted, mob lynching is not justice. But
| if the ACLU is compromised maybe it is too late.
| seventytwo wrote:
| There's lots of "speech" that's already illegal in the US.
|
| Please, define where the actual line should be.
| insert_coin wrote:
| What speech is illegal? What is the list of words not allowed
| by law to be spoken?
| philipkglass wrote:
| Inciting "imminent lawless action" through speech is
| illegal in the United States:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imminent_lawless_action
| mnouquet wrote:
| This hardly qualifies as "lots of speech".
| Applejinx wrote:
| That gives rise to the fair question of, 'is free speech the
| only law that exists?' To what extent do all other
| considerations go by the wayside in order to draw a bright line
| sanctioning ALL possible expressions of ideas in speech, by
| definition rendering them immune from any sort of judgement or
| consequence?
|
| I think there's a fair amount of existing law that's made
| rather ridiculous by this position. In particular, the whole
| notion of conspiracy goes out the window when it's by
| definition not possible to share in responsibility for an act
| by persuasion. I'm not even sure it's possible to extort: if
| you can plausibly say you will wreak mayhem on a person for
| failing to comply, and you do so, and they comply rather than
| get mayhem wrought upon them, you've got what you want but you
| have never done more than speak. Your actions have never once
| crossed the line. The fact that your speech functioned as
| plausible threats is irrelevant: it was always and only speech,
| because nobody called you on it.
| [deleted]
| jl2718 wrote:
| Well obviously it's not working so maybe we need some other
| right to make sure we can retain that one. Hmmm... wonder if
| anybody thought of that...
| stuaxo wrote:
| I've seen so much pro establish ment guff from the NYT I CBA to
| read this.
| Syonyk wrote:
| 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. "Assume the
| reader is an idiot and send _surveys_ with the most leading
| questions you 've ever heard of, then ask for money." Usually,
| they say "Please send us $15 to process the survey, and your best
| gift."
|
| The questions are absolutely, loaded, leading questions that
| would be laughed out of any courtroom or actual attempt at a
| statistically accurate survey. They're things like "Do you agree
| that racial injustice and white supremacy is _the most important
| issue facing America today_? " and "Do you agree that widespread,
| unchecked illegal immigration is on a path to destroy the nation
| we love?"
|
| One group actually has survey stickers you respond with - "Yes,
| illegal immigration is a huge concern!" and "No, I'm a _global
| elitist_ who supports illegal aliens voting in our elections and
| overthrowing our Democracy. " Or something of the sort.
|
| I guess it works or they wouldn't do it, but it's absolutely
| insane how these "surveys" are worded. I'm sure all they do is
| look for a check on the inside instead of "processing" them.
|
| Oh, and just in case you're a drooling moron who doesn't know how
| to read a letter, the attached letter highlighting the supposed
| problems will reliably include at the bottom of the pages,
| "Over!" "Next page please!" "Flip over to continue reading!" and
| other insulting directions that more or less imply I don't know
| how to read a multi-page document. Since it's apparently against
| federal law to leave whitespace in such a fundraising request,
| they fill the last page with "PS: This is an _URGENT_ issue that
| requires your rushed donation to STOP THEM from DOING EVIL
| THINGS. " "PPS: Please rush your donation back!" "PPSS: I'm still
| going to put stuff here so there's no whitespace."
|
| But I do tend to respond in long form, usually expanding on
| answers, and often include 2-3 typed pages in response when the
| survey lacks nuance. I doubt it ever gets read, but it's good
| practice for being able to expand on issues.
|
| In any case, the ACLU isn't getting my money. Neither is the
| Heritage Foundation, and neither are any other groups that send
| me these "surveys" where the only important question is "But how
| much can you afford to give?"
| Natsu wrote:
| Can confirm, I get surveys like this from all sides and they
| all use the same sort of push polls. During election season,
| they'll call you and give you surveys like this too, sometimes.
| stirfish wrote:
| > Since it's apparently against federal law to leave whitespace
| in such a fundraising request,
|
| Oh nice, we are following federal fundraising laws now. This is
| an improvement.
| Syonyk wrote:
| I think they dream these things up more while drinking claws.
|
| But it's very, very consistent. The "Outrage you so you give
| us money" letters in these surveys don't leave any whitespace
| on the last page.
|
| On the other hand, there are some groups I support who will
| send something along the lines of a 10 page, single sided,
| properly written letter (no random *BOLD* _italic_ and the
| ever-popular "ink pen looking circles to draw your attention
| to the outrage of the day") explaining in competent written
| English what they've been doing, where they'd like to expand,
| and what they need to accomplish this. I'm far, far more
| likely to support those groups (though I generally just give
| locally, I've less interest in what's going on in Washington
| than in our local town and region).
| mLuby wrote:
| > just in case you're a drooling moron who doesn't know how to
| read a letter, the attached letter highlighting the supposed
| problems will reliably include at the bottom of the pages,
| "Over!" "Next page please!" "Flip over to continue reading!"
| and other insulting directions that more or less imply I don't
| know how to read a multi-page document.
|
| I haven't drooled in a while, but I do actually appreciate
| those kinds of hints.
|
| I agree with everything else you said though. It's hard to
| imagine that debasing the very concept of surveys will be a net
| positive for democracy.
| tschwimmer wrote:
| 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
| myWindoonn wrote:
| 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.
| throwaway3699 wrote:
| Free speech is how civil rights are won. It is a prerequisite
| for a positive change.
| myWindoonn wrote:
| I know how much food $1500 will buy, or how many months of
| rent it will cover, or how little of a hospital bill it can
| handle. How much civil rights can $1500 buy? They didn't know
| on the phone, but I was genuinely curious.
|
| I agree that free speech is essential -- I imagine that they
| asked for money because I gave them money in the past. Can
| you agree that the starving, homeless, and sick might have
| difficulty exercising their right to free speech even if the
| ACLU protects it in court?
| wearywanderer wrote:
| > _"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.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| If you seek to use governance as a tool to strip citizens of
| their liberty you are demonstrably un-American. That doesn't
| stop many politicians from doing so and making it a
| foundation of their party's ideology.
| neonate wrote:
| https://archive.is/zo5sx
| kofejnik wrote:
| > Four years later at the University of Connecticut, two white
| students ... > The A.C.L.U. of Connecticut demanded that the
| university hire 10 Black faculty and staff members
|
| NYT's double standards are ridiculous
| jseliger wrote:
| 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.
| wutbrodo wrote:
| I held them up for years and years as an example of an actually
| principled organization in an age where every other institution
| was compromising their stated beliefs in favor of genuflection
| to fashionable slogans. Like you, I stopped doing this a few
| years ago : (
|
| To their relative credit, they do seem to be struggling with it
| in a way that very few other orgs are, and you occasionally see
| them take principled action.
| nxc18 wrote:
| 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 100+ years, but the ACLU would have defended me
| anyway. That version of the ACLU no longer exists.
|
| Reading through their Twitter again just now, it is clear they
| have gone off the rails.
| stirfish wrote:
| The NRA started as a way to retrain Union soldiers to
| actually aim their weapons instead of volleying them, as they
| were no longer using smooth-bored muskets. If that's a
| principle, they did that.
|
| I'm not sure why they became a weird mix of Russians and the
| KKK.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| > I'm not sure why they became a weird mix of Russians and
| the KKK.
|
| They didn't. The NRA supports the rights of all individuals
| to own gubs. The KKK supports gun control to stop
| minorities from owning guns.
| 1986 wrote:
| Then why was the NRA so silent about Philando Castile?
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Because he was in possession of a controlled substance
| and a gun which is illegal.
|
| Edit: not sure why I am being down voted but here is the
| statement https://mobile.twitter.com/DLoesch/status/89550
| 8311193382912
| a1369209993 wrote:
| > not sure why I am being down voted
|
| Probably for stupid reasons, but a legitimate reason for
| downvoting you would be because that is no such thing as
| a gun which is illegal[0]; that's the whole point of the
| second amendment.
|
| 0: Except maybe something like a https://en.wikipedia.org
| /wiki/Davy_Crockett_(nuclear_device) if applicable arms
| limitation treaties make it also illegal for the military
| to possess one.
| Applejinx wrote:
| Money, politics, and quite a lot of persistent effort.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| The ACLU has never defended or supported Hellerian 2A rights
| (https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment), and its not
| clear that they should change their position due to a shift
| in SC precedent, anymore than that they should shift their
| position on speech if the SC decided to revert to _Schenck_.
| hed wrote:
| Once they came out after Heller and stated they still
| believed it was a collective right, I knew my relationship
| with them was over.
|
| ACLU (and others) cite it as a 5-4 decision but even the
| dissenters on the case believed it was an individual right,
| they just still thought it could be regulated /
| scrutinized. In that sense the individual right won 9-0.
| syshum wrote:
| The collective right never made any sense in the first
| place, not a single other amendment in the bill of rights
| is viewed as a "collective right" so why in the hell
| would this lone amendment be a "collective right"
|
| Further what the hell does a "collective right" even look
| like in the first place....
|
| the ACLU hates guns, does not believe anyone outside the
| government should have guns, the "collective right" was
| just their cover so they did not have to admit they only
| stood for some of the constitution not all of it
|
| //EDIT: Mods have rate limited me, so in response to
| comment below allow me to add
|
| I guess I should have implicitly stated Constitutional
| Rights, and more specifically Bill of Rights in the
| context.
|
| On top of that, that is still not a "collective right",
| that is more of a Balance of rights, You have a right to
| your property, I have a right to my property, if your
| actions (aka polluting ) damage my property then you have
| directly harmed my individual rights and are thus liable
|
| An example of this would be the fact that I have the
| right to swing my arms, but if I swing my arms in a
| manner that hits another person I have violated their
| bodily rights not to be injured by me. No one would claim
| that is a "collective right", no here we are balancing
| individual rights, their right to not be injured trumps
| my right to swing my arms in the physical space they
| occupy at that moment
| arrosenberg wrote:
| > 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
| can't dump pollutants or trash in the river, nor can you
| divert the waterway. You have an individual right to use
| your own property, but your neighbors (depending on the
| issue, this may be local or global) have a collective
| right not to suffer damage or externalities from that
| use.
|
| In the context of the gun discussion, the collective
| rights people believe that gun ownership is intended to
| defend the neighborhood, not for individual self-defense.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| 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.
| [deleted]
| istorical wrote:
| > 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.
| happytoexplain wrote:
| >people ... suggest cancel culture is only something to
| complain about if you've done / said something wrong
|
| This is an oversimplification. What you might be
| extrapolating from is the common sentiment that complaining
| about cancel culture is not substantive in cases where an
| individual appears to _have_ done something wrong enough to
| justify the consequences. Yes, "wrong enough" is of
| varying subjectivity in each case, but focusing on "cancel
| culture" as some kind of monolithic evil instead of
| focusing on the details of each case is a very common
| source of noise, and so is commonly criticized, and that
| criticism may be what you're accumulating into "cancel
| culture is only something to complain about if you've done
| / said something wrong".
| [deleted]
| p1necone wrote:
| 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.
| IshKebab wrote:
| 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.
| ectopod wrote:
| Driving.
|
| When you are not killing people quickly in accidents, you
| are killing them slowly with particulate pollution. And
| if that's not enough, you are also making a big
| contribution to global warming, an existential threat to
| our civilisation. It is unconscionable!
|
| This is what people will say in the future anyway. You
| can make your own mind up.
| [deleted]
| losvedir wrote:
| Maybe keeping a pet? Probably carbon intensive things
| like taking an international flight for vacation.
| bbarnett wrote:
| Maybe, but, I figure it will be things everyone feels OK
| with. Meaning, if you can think of "what's wrong" today,
| you're already off base...
| billforsternz wrote:
| Putting people in prison for years
| leephillips wrote:
| Letting people out of prison so they can kill some more.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Raising children at home. In the near future an idea will
| arise that trained professionals will be better to train
| children as they grow up and parents would provide more
| value to society if they continued to work and not had to
| spend time with their children.
|
| Human animal relationships. Animals will gain rights and
| it will be a natural outcome.
|
| Robot phobia, followed by robot acceptance and
| relationships.
|
| Kissing or touching before marriage will be rape.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| > Raising children at home. In the near future an idea
| will arise that trained professionals will be better to
| train children as they grow up and parents would provide
| more value to society if they continued to work and not
| had to spend time with their children.
|
| Separating parents from their children is an idea from
| the recent past; no need to invoke the near future. It
| was a policy element of various communist societies
| including Israeli kibbutzim.
|
| It is staggeringly, tremendously unpopular. There is no
| need to fear it taking off.
| decasteve wrote:
| > Raising children at home.
|
| Then fetuses raised outside of the womb in an apparatus.
|
| "Brave new world", indeed.
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| Since we're going down this road of wild guessing for the
| future ... marriage will probably evolve a lot by then
| with more legal bindings or stop making sense for most
| people entirely. Maybe a renewal clause will become
| standard and every X months, the parties opt in to keep
| it going.
| birdyrooster wrote:
| 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.
| devwastaken wrote:
| I looked at their twitter, looks pretty good to me. What
| exactly are you talking about?
| syshum wrote:
| NRA never was, they wrote or substantially contributed to
| most of the Gun Laws we have today, they comprised the 2nd
| amendment way in never ending trail of "reasonable gun
| control" [1]
|
| GOA and SAF (Second Amendment Foundation) are far far better
| when it comes to actual legal challenges to laws that
| infringe the 2nd Amendment
|
| [1] https://i.imgur.com/TO8BGgw.png
| jdhn wrote:
| At this point, I think the NRA exists only to act as a foil
| for gun control groups. I have donated to both of the
| groups you mentioned as I think that they're both
| lightyears ahead of the NRA when it comes to actually doing
| anything.
| asabjorn wrote:
| https://www.thefire.org/ has picked up the mantle on executing
| on the vision of what ACLU used to be.
|
| ACLU is lost, I stopped donating a while ago as well, and it
| won't return until they oust those that work against the
| liberal ideal.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I have a similar history.
|
| My replacement donations are Fire and Institute for Justice.
|
| https://www.thefire.org/ https://ij.org/
| tpmx wrote:
| 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.)
| 6foot4_82iq wrote:
| How quickly things change.
|
| "In Soviet Russia, we too have freedom of speech. But in
| America, you have freedom after speech" -- Yakov Smirnoff
| throwaway2162 wrote:
| 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.
| 6foot4_82iq wrote:
| Robert Conquest's Three Laws of Politics are enough to
| explain the downfall of ACLU:
|
| 1. Everyone is conservative about what they know best
|
| 2. Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later
| becomes left-wing
|
| 3. The simplest way to explain the behavior of any
| bureaucratic organization is to assume that it is controlled
| by a cabal of its enemies
| paulpauper wrote:
| 2x the donations
| [deleted]
| Avshalom wrote:
| You know free speech isn't the only civil liberty right?
| nzrf wrote:
| Much like they just stay out of 2nd amendment...
|
| https://www.aclu.org/blog/civil-
| liberties/mobilization/aclus...
|
| As I support their efforts generally. I find picking and
| choosing seems counter to the what protecting our civil
| liberties means in a whole.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Its not a pick and choose if they fundamentally disagree
| with the interpretation of the amendment.
| rgbrenner wrote:
| Theyve said previously that the reason they mostly stay out
| of the 2nd amendment is that there's already a well funded
| organization that has made the 2nd their sole focus. The
| NRA's budget is larger than the ACLUs.. so it makes sense
| for them to prioritize other constitutional issues.
| Natsu wrote:
| There's mostly downside for them because a significant
| fraction of their members are not fans of the 2nd
| amendment.
|
| The closest I think they've gotten to gun cases is
| probably this one, which was more of a 4th amendment
| issue:
|
| https://www.aclu.org/cases/caniglia-v-strom
| [deleted]
| leephillips wrote:
| There have been others. I join in the disappointment at
| the sad turn the ACLU has taken. But they have been
| consistent in their opposition to no-fly lists, as an
| end-run around due process, and have applied the same
| argument against proposals to create similar no-gun
| lists. They are right in both cases.
|
| Then there was this case, which was mainly 1st amendment,
| but with strong 2nd amendment ingredients:
|
| https://lee-phillips.org/aclu2/
| tpmx wrote:
| It does seem to be the one civil liberty where ACLU people
| very strongly disagree with each other.
| xbar wrote:
| True. We also need to keep soldiers from moving into our
| homes.
|
| More seriously, the ACLU has always faced an identity crisis
| and a consequent PR problem.
|
| If the ACLU embraced all civil liberties, wouldn't you expect
| more Bill-Of-Rights-T-Shirt wearers to be more supportive?
| tomlockwood wrote:
| 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.
| depaulagu wrote:
| 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.
| tomlockwood wrote:
| No, without existence, there can be no democracy or
| democratic representation. Being allowed to exist is the
| most fundamental right.
| justnotworthit wrote:
| You know a 3rd category would ruin the joke (and its power to
| provide insight and perspective) right?
| golemiprague wrote:
| As much as I like a good political debate I wish HN restrict
| itself to more tech related articles rather than this. Sometimes
| tech has some political aspecst or we discuss the politics of
| certain tech companies, but this has nothing to do with either
| tech or tech companies, so why is it even here?
| twodai wrote:
| Correct me if I'm incorrect but the idea of the hn forum is to
| discuss and share things which spark curiosity or something
| along those lines. I believe this article and conversation is
| incredibly curiosity inspiring. Also if hn was to deviate from
| that aim I think hn would really cease to be what it is.
| atoav wrote:
| For free speech to be a reasonable thing to priorise over other
| things you have to have some more fundamental rules of society in
| place. E.g. fighting for free speech during the rise of the nazi
| party in 1920s Germany might sound like a noble thing, but once
| the Nazis whos speech you defended are in power they will shoot
| you at your doorstep for defending that of their enemies.
|
| That doesn't mean you have forbid Nazis from ever speaking (as if
| this would work), it means you have to make sure your democracy
| and your institutions are stable enough to survive their first
| period in government and manage to get a peaceful and fair
| transfer of power after that (instead of Nazis setting fire to
| the Reichstag, blaming it on communists, declaring an emergency
| and never have elections again).
|
| I'd rather loose the right to utter certain inflamatory phrases
| than loose the right and the possibility to vote the next
| government out of office in a fair and representative election.
| mnouquet wrote:
| > For free speech to be a reasonable thing to priorise over
| other things you have to have some more fundamental rules of
| society in place. E.g. fighting for free speech during the rise
| of the nazi party in 1920s Germany might sound like a noble
| thing, but once the Nazis whos speech you defended are in power
| they will shoot you at your doorstep for defending that of
| their enemies.
|
| Do you mean the actual summary of what happened in the US over
| the past 50 years ?
|
| "These Rights were convenient at the time we were a minority,
| but now, we are in power, they are in the way of our ideal
| utopia."
|
| > I'd rather loose the right to utter certain inflamatory
| phrases than loose the right and the possibility to vote the
| next government out of office in a fair and representative
| election.
|
| And that's why the 2nd Amendment is protecting the 1st. (and
| all the subsequent).
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I don't understand why you would join the ACLU if you don't
| actually support the first ammendment and the stances the ACLU
| has taken? Seriously. Why? Its like joining a bowling league and
| complaining that you want to play soccer.
| asabjorn wrote:
| Its got a huge endowment and a strong brand that can be
| subverted into fighting for progressive causes instead of what
| it used to do. It's woke 101 playbook.
|
| Basecamp and coinbase showed that you either choose to have
| zero tolerance of politics in the workplace, or the woke will
| make you spend as many resources as possible on political
| activism instead of whatever you used to do. A dynamic that has
| been so toxic to work dynamics and productivity that even a
| woke company like Basecamp had to course-correct.
|
| The organizations that have chosen to forbid political activism
| at work have lost employees that prioritize this over work, but
| those that remained have gotten back to work with fewer
| distractions and its arguable that loosing people that
| prioritize activism at work over the company vision is a net
| positive.
| javagram wrote:
| What the ACLU does is inherently political, talking about
| basecamp and coinbase here doesn't make much sense to me.
|
| The question facing the ACLU is should they be partisan
| (fight for the rights of just one side) or merely political
| (fight for all side's rights, even the sides that you
| disagree with).
| asabjorn wrote:
| It is relevant because you had an organization with a clear
| creed and track record to protect the liberal principles
| even when its inconvenient, that is now subverted into
| political activism for progressive causes in the same way
| that similar activism subverted basecamp and coinbase.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| I would change the framing a little: should they _continue_
| to be non-partisan.
|
| And becoming partisan isn't just a way of pushing for the
| core mission more/less effectively. It means dropping huge
| chunks of the core mission (rights for anyone you disagree
| with).
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| 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.
| LatteLazy wrote:
| 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 she wanted more female
| managers, not just because it would be profitable but for
| her political beliefs -> woke.
| [deleted]
| syshum wrote:
| It is fairly common... Join an organization/group/fandom that
| is popular/powerful, complain about the causes/people/beliefs
| of the organization/group/fandom in order to force a change in
| the organization, exile any with in the
| organization/group/fandom that disagree with you...
|
| When those you exile move to a new organization/group/fandom
| either attempt to shut that down before it grows, or if grows
| to become powerful Join an organization/group/fandom that is
| popular/powerful, and complain ....
| sammalloy wrote:
| There's not a single word about Citizens United v. FEC (2010) in
| this article, and how defending the free speech of this
| organization set them on this downward trajectory.
| javagram wrote:
| Citizens United was about banning an organization from
| publishing a political attack video on Hillary Clinton.
|
| If Citizens United had gone the other way, nothing would stop
| the government from banning books or social media posts as
| well. (During oral arguments before the Supreme Court, the
| government lawyer admitted they believed they could ban books
| and YouTube videos as well)
|
| Citizens United is frequently misunderstood - the main problem
| with it is that because restrictions on recognized political
| party fundraising still remain on the books, political money
| ends up flooding into third party organizations that are less
| under control of the institutional party and are more likely to
| be extreme. Meanwhile political candidates can plausibly deny
| their connection to the actions of such super PACs. Making the
| playing field even again by allowing larger or unlimited direct
| donations to candidates or parties would be the way toward a
| just but also effective solution.
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