[HN Gopher] The ACLU Has Lost Its Way
___________________________________________________________________
The ACLU Has Lost Its Way
Author : tysone
Score : 475 points
Date : 2022-05-10 16:44 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theatlantic.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theatlantic.com)
| commandlinefan wrote:
| There's a really disturbing movement _against_ freedom of speech
| in the US that I never thought I would see.
| [deleted]
| Miner49er wrote:
| It's not the first time, though, look at McCarthyism. We mostly
| bounced back from that, we'll probably do the same this time.
| LewisVerstappen wrote:
| Sure, but people have to fight for their rights. The world
| doesn't swing towards freedom automatically. The rise of
| authoritarianism around the world (China, Russia, etc.) makes
| that clear.
| mandmandam wrote:
| It's a small but crucial part of a wider class war, which is
| beyond belief in its scale and sheer evil.
|
| "Vote blue no matter who" isn't gonna get us out of this one,
| and neither is donating to the ACLU and NPR.
| ranger207 wrote:
| It's really a shame that my options right now are either the
| anti-freedom "no abortions, no weed, and absolutely no
| criticizing us" party, or the anti-freedom "no critical
| thinking, no guns, and absolutely no criticising us" party.
| Unfortunately under first past the post tribalism is
| rewarded, and moving to the center only gives room for a more
| radical same-party challenger to appear making you both lose.
| In my opinion, the greatest boost to freedom in current
| American politics would be the introduction of a better
| voting system[0] to allow third parties to exist and
| encourage them to work together to legislate.
|
| [0] I prefer score voting, but I'll vote for anyone who will
| get any alternate form of voting out there. For an easy
| explanation of the different voting systems, look at
| https://ncase.me/ballot/
| tiahura wrote:
| Trump was pro medical and thought rec should be decided at
| the state level. Seems pretty balanced and mainstream to
| me.
| dicknuckle wrote:
| Score Voting, Runoff Voting, something, anything to fix the
| red/blue mess here.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Out of? It's how we got it. I can't be the only one left that
| is wondering how the window shifted so far left so quickly.
| Well, I guess me and Elon.
| colpabar wrote:
| It shifted because the powers that be saw an actual
| unified, targeted movement aimed against the ultra rich
| (occupy), and got scared. So now, instead of fighting
| against the people who own the government, we are fighting
| each other based on skin color. So progressive!
| dorfsmay wrote:
| I'm outside the US, but I see similar issues everywhere. I
| think it's time modern democracies stoped having
| "representative of the people" voting on laws. Laws should be
| considered each on their own value, and everybody should be
| able to vote for/against them.
| thfuran wrote:
| That's probably worse.
| alasdair_ wrote:
| I think the same thing, for the most part.
|
| The issue is coming up with the text of a bill to actually
| vote on and finding a way to avoid laws that contradict
| each other unintentionally.
| usrn wrote:
| Some ancient democracies did similar things. You should
| read about what the people who lived in them had to say.
| nostromo wrote:
| Switzerland does this today. They have a blended system
| of direct and representational democracy.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voting_in_Switzerland
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Perhaps going back to one representative per 10,000 would
| help? We'd have to use technology to hold a quorem though.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Unfortunately, United States has a population of ~330
| million and that would mean a House of Representatives
| with 33,000 members. There's no way it would be able to
| effectively deliberate topics with that many people. Just
| imagine how little time each representative could be
| allocated to speak, given there are only 8,760 hours in a
| year. Additionally the individual power of each
| representative would be so watered down as to be
| practically meaningless.
|
| It's an unacceptable solution but it seems to me that the
| US is just too big and splitting it up would make more
| sense.
| Buttons840 wrote:
| Why do people need to debate on the house floor? Do such
| debates actually change anyone's mind or how they vote?
| Let them debate in an electronic forum with written
| arguments, let them debate in public and on social media
| (a good portion of political debate already happens on
| social media). Debate on the floor isn't so sacred we
| can't do without it.
|
| And yes, the power of individual representatives would be
| watered down, that's ok. It would be much closer to the
| direct democracy the parent comment suggested (and the
| reason I brought it up).
|
| It allows representatives to deal with boring bills the
| public doesn't care about, but there are enough
| representatives that I can reasonably expect to be on a
| first name basis with my representative if I care enough
| to get involved.
| javagram wrote:
| Debate on the floor of the House and Senate is largely
| faked for TV cameras already in the current era.
|
| CSPAN camera angles are limited on purpose to hide this,
| but most speeches are given to an empty or nearly empty
| chamber. Actual floor debate that might change viewpoints
| is rare to non-existent now - the real debate and
| discussion happens off of the floor in private intra-
| party meetings and lunches, or in 1:1 meetings between
| leadership.
| dolni wrote:
| > It's an unacceptable solution but it seems to me that
| the US is just too big and splitting it up would make
| more sense.
|
| We already have this. The divisions are called states.
| And it's solid argument for a weaker federal government.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I wholeheartedly agree, but sadly the Federalists "won"
| this power struggle long ago.
| jgeada wrote:
| Because freedom of speech has never been quite what it says. It
| is basically only immunity from consequences for the rich and
| powerful. Only they're allowed to have substantive influential
| speech without consequences, and only they are allowed to
| reclassify bribery as "speech".
|
| Anybody not in that set saying something the rich and powerful
| don't agree with gets sued into oblivion and/or gets their soap
| box taken away.
|
| All that is happening is that people want _everyone_ to live by
| the same rules. Either nobody has consequences or everybody can
| have the soapbox taken away if the general public doesn 't
| agree with them.
|
| Billionaires have been too blatant with media manipulation for
| everyone else to be OK with the rules as they are.
|
| BTW I'd also note that "free speech" American style is almost
| like a religion, you can't argue against it. I'd just note that
| no other country Europe (or the world) subscribes to this
| absolutist version of free speech. So it is reasonable that
| questions ensue questioning how great this "free speech" really
| is. Is lying by corporations really speech?
| lliamander wrote:
| Could you please provide specific examples of how this
| current trend of wanting to outlaw hate speech,
| "disinformation", etc., applies to billionaires, rather than
| the common people?
|
| "Free speech absolutism" is a nonsensical slur. There are
| sensible restrictions on the freedom of speech that have been
| engrained into American jurisprudence. There actually used to
| be more exceptions (for instance, anti-war speech was illegal
| during World War 1) but, to their credit, the political left
| pushed for expanding those rights.
|
| But yes, we do take our free speech with religious
| seriousness. That is because many of our ancestors came here
| to escape religious persecution from Europe (and other
| places). We do not wish to return to the bad old days where
| our beliefs could again be criminalized.
| mlindner wrote:
| This is a great post illustrative of the currently widespread
| misunderstanding of freedom of speech in the US. It's not
| about the powerless wanting to control the speech of the rich
| and powerful. It's about the powerful of one side wanting to
| control the speech of the powerful of the other side by
| weaponizing ignorant masses of the populace to do their fight
| for them in defeating the ability of their opponents to have
| speech.
|
| It's a scary precedent and even more scary that so many don't
| see what's happening.
|
| > Billionaires have been too blatant with media manipulation
| for everyone else to be OK with the rules as they are.
|
| The powerful have controlled the media in the past WAY more
| than they do now or even in recent decades. Even the people
| gaining control of the media recently are outside of the
| normal historical rich as they're all of the nouveau riche
| class.
|
| This is all one more example of the recent trend of not
| wanting to bring UP the less privileged but to tear DOWN the
| privileged to the level of the less privileged. The former is
| beneficial for society the latter is self-destructive.
|
| The result of lack of speech is violence. If people (parts of
| the rich) can't voice their opinion with words they do so
| with actions by galvanizing people into violent actions.
| JackFr wrote:
| > It is basically only immunity from consequences for the
| rich and powerful. Only they're allowed to have substantive
| influential speech without consequences, and only they are
| allowed to reclassify bribery as "speech".
|
| This is simply not true and I'm curious if you have any
| examples to support this.
|
| > Anybody not in that set saying something the rich and
| powerful don't agree with gets sued into oblivion and/or gets
| their soap box taken away.
|
| Again that is simply not true. In fact compared with the UK
| for instance it is _far_ harder to sue for libel or
| defamation in the US.
|
| > Billionaires have been too blatant with media manipulation
| for everyone else to be OK with the rules as they are.
|
| Rich people have access to resources the poor don't. That's
| not new.
|
| > BTW I'd also note that "free speech" American style is
| almost like a religion, you can't argue against it. I'd just
| note that no other country Europe (or the world) subscribes
| to this absolutist version of free speech.
|
| In general we _are_ free speech absolutists. Honestly along
| with fast food, very entertaining movies and our love affair
| with guns it 's quintessentially American.
| mythrwy wrote:
| Sadly our movies have gotten much less entertaining over
| the past 10 years.
|
| The fast food and guns are still doing well though!
| [deleted]
| brudgers wrote:
| First they came for the communists...
| rrradical wrote:
| What are some examples of this? (Aside from the posted article,
| which is debated in other comments.)
| jollybean wrote:
| Banning people from Twitter, App Store, AWS, VISA being
| cancelled, kicked out of distribution etc...
|
| Private institutions are narrowing their versions of what was
| considered normative 'crude' behaviour into 'hate speech'
| which has implications. Netflix, Hulu etc. spend a lot of
| time defining what's appropriate and not in their
| programming, and someone uttering something 'counter
| narrative' is problematic for them (unless it makes them a
| lot of money).
|
| That said, with Trump lying about the election, and others
| lying about vaccines, and foreign actors 100% trying to
| influence electoral outcomes (these are real things), it's an
| actual problem.
|
| I mean, I don't care if RT.com is punted from anywhere, it's
| not relevant, but it's a slippery slope.
| native_samples wrote:
| One might think the recently announced Disinformation Board
| would count.
| jandrese wrote:
| Notable examples include kicking people who post white
| supremacist articles off of Twitter and Facebook. Or DirectTV
| dropping OAN from their lineup because their ratings have
| tanked after Trump left office. Or when Marjorie Taylor Green
| lost her committee assignments for merely stating her belief
| that white genocide is a major problem that Congress must
| take action against the Jewish space lasers immediately
| before they cause more wildfires that kill white people.
| rdl wrote:
| ACLU membership and staff have always been fairly left, but they
| were impressively focused on (IMO) the most important civil
| rights as rights through their work at ACLU, and largely kept
| their personal politics out of that. A "mission driven
| organization", as it were. Pretty sad to see what's happened over
| the past few decades (accelerating; not sure when it started, but
| it got really bad around 2012-2016, and then far worse). They
| always believed in "all civil rights except 2A", but I could
| overlook that since there are other 2A-specific organizations.
|
| I still support them on specific issues, but they're often on the
| anti-liberty side on other issues, or just actually crazy. Sad.
| finiteseries wrote:
| Core:
|
| _...since Trump's election, according to The New York Times, the
| organization's annual budget has grown threefold and its lawyer
| staff has doubled--but only four of its attorneys specialize in
| free-speech issues, a number that has not changed in a decade._
|
| _Instead, the ACLU has expanded its services--and filled its
| coffers--as it takes partisan stances or embraces dubious causes.
| Meanwhile, when it comes to the red-hot culture-war issues
| squarely within its wheelhouse, such as the right to free, albeit
| hateful, speech on campus, the ACLU has stayed largely on the
| sidelines._
| Clubber wrote:
| It seems our corrupt political class has rotted one of our most
| venerable institutions.
|
| _Those who want to be rich, however, fall into temptation and
| become ensnared by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge
| them into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the
| root of all kinds of evil. By craving it, some have wandered
| away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.
| But you, O man of God, flee from these things and pursue
| righteousness, godliness, faith, love, perseverance, and
| gentleness._
|
| I'm not an overly religious person, but this seems to ring true
| as much today as it ever has.
| colpabar wrote:
| I think it's more than just the political class. It seems
| like the entirety of american culture revolves around the
| idea that everyone should want to get rich by any means
| necessary.
| Loughla wrote:
| It's like those pictures of bulldogs from the early 20th
| century. They look like real dogs, they don't have the
| health problems, and they just seem to be better. But then
| it becomes a competition. There is a public standard for
| success. And now we have flat faced monsters that can't
| breed on their own and need surgery just to breathe.
|
| We're just seeing the natural progression of American
| individualism. What used to mean - be strong in the face of
| adversity, work toward a positive goal, and bring others
| along once you make it, has become a monstrosity. Winning
| means amassing resources, regardless of the steps you take
| to get those resources. Oh, and don't forget to pull the
| ladder up after you, because if someone else wins, you
| lose.
|
| What we're seeing is the evolution, the simple, natural
| evolution of stoic individualism taken to the nth degree.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| I think the timeline of mass media, public relations
| weaponizing psychology, and consumerism being the focus
| of media messaging are relevant to that change -- rather
| than it being the inevitable outcome of stoic
| individualism.
| Loughla wrote:
| I think those are just further extensions. When all that
| matters is winning, and my own winning, the psychological
| outcomes of weaponized marketing literally don't matter.
| When my corporation selling things is what matters, and
| my success is what matters this quarter, rampant
| consumerism and the inevitable impacts on society/the
| planet don't matter.
|
| Honestly, I do believe it all comes down to the cultural
| individualism as the prime component of success. Other
| countries have the same PR, mass media, and consumer
| goods, but don't seem to have the same cut-throat
| attitude to absolutely everything in their lives.
| bitwize wrote:
| Astronaut 1: Wait, America is based on toxic
| individualism, and winning at others' expense?
|
| Astronaut 2: Always has been...
| colpabar wrote:
| I completely disagree. I think this is the result of the
| war on the middle class and how expensive it has become
| just to stay alive in america. Social media platforms
| also promote the hell out of "grindset" accounts, or
| accounts that are just rich people doing expensive
| activities, and I refuse to believe that these trends
| that appear overnight are actually organic at all.
|
| It feels like we're being conditioned to hate poor
| people.
| nullc wrote:
| ACLU mostly killed itself through a disastrous mishandling of
| succession.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I suppose that's why the ACLU didn't want to get involved with
| the rights violations I reported a couple years ago. I suppose if
| i had $3.5M it could have been different.
| nobodyandproud wrote:
| It's a singular leadership issue. Ira Glasser stood for
| something; current leadership does not.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| Miner49er wrote:
| This makes sense to me. They've basically bought into the idea
| of the Paradox of Tolerance.
|
| That still doesn't explain why they are involved with the
| Heard/Depp case. Or why they were supporting Stacey Abrams'
| campaign or campaigning against Brett Kavanaugh.
| colinmhayes wrote:
| Well Kavanaugh has some evidence accusing him of rape and
| Abrams fights incredibly hard for voting rights, which seems
| like a civil liberty to me.
| NelsonMinar wrote:
| I don't much care about the Heard/Depp case, it's a tabloid
| sideshow. The story the Atlantic author presents seems bad to
| me, maybe the ACLU made a mistake there.
|
| Supporting Stacey Abrams makes absolute sense; she's done
| more work on the ground for voting rights than any politician
| at her level. As for Kavanaugh, the ACLU's explanation for
| their opposition satisfies me.
| https://www.aclu.org/blog/civil-liberties/executive-
| branch/w...
| yetanother4968 wrote:
| Their explanation you linked which says:
|
| "Does this decision change ACLU policy?
|
| No. ACLU policy is not to support or oppose any candidate
| for elected or appointed office, including Supreme Court
| justices."
|
| And supporting Stacey Abrams is in keeping with that...how?
|
| Edit: typos
| shuckles wrote:
| I think the argument in the Atlantic piece is roughly that
| these "one-off" exceptional blog posts justifying their
| decision is largely just-so stories with little principled
| reasoning. For example, this is their defense for why they
| opposed the justice nomination:
|
| "Board members were clear that if the same concerns were
| raised about a Democratic Supreme Court nominee --
| inadequately investigated credible allegations of sexual
| assault supported by credible testimony and met by nominee
| testimony showing angry partisanship -- we would similarly
| oppose that nominee."
|
| That's a lot of qualifiers! Would they do the same for any
| potential crime? What about other crimes whose severity,
| from a social perspective, has changed in the other
| direction in the years since they were committed? For
| example, smoking weed was probably considered,
| contemporaneously, as less forgivable than making unwanted
| sexual advances. Should we try to dig into whether a
| nominee passed a blunt in college, since surely that's a
| sign of poor past judgment?
|
| By wading into these waters, the ACLU should have airtight
| argumentation, ideally proactive not reactive. It hasn't
| offered much of that, which is why its integrity is being
| credibly questioned.
| shuckles wrote:
| How do you frame the episode where they sell defamation
| services in exchange for donations, a sort of extortion scheme?
| colinmhayes wrote:
| If you're talking about the op-ed I don't even think that was
| Heard's idea. It really sounds like she wasn't involved in it
| at all. They sold her the ambassadorship title I guess, but
| after that they were just trying to cash in on me too. Heard
| was a useful figure because they already had a relationship
| with her and she had a public messy divorce.
| mlindner wrote:
| Being wrong one time doesn't usually mean you should throw out
| an entire ideology.
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| pessimizer wrote:
| Considering the outlet, if the Atlantic thinks that the ACLU is
| too aligned with Democratic Party politics, it probably is. I
| don't even know how this got published unless there's some
| behind-the-scenes jostling going on to replace the leadership,
| staged internally or by whale donors.
| zerocrates wrote:
| You mean the leadership of the Atlantic? Their traditional
| brand is "left-center" so this is pretty squarely in the
| wheelhouse for them, I'd say.
| DanAtC wrote:
| ACLU has also been campaigning against San Francisco Prop H
| (ballot measure to recall DA). Seems way out of their wheelhouse.
|
| https://www.aclunc.org/norecall
| [deleted]
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I've always enjoyed that even in their hayday of "in
| wheelhouse" they would pretend that 2A wasn't/isn't a civil
| right.
|
| I mean... guys... it's #2. I wouldn't be surprise to hear that
| ACLU defended more people against 3A violations than 2A.
| gizmo686 wrote:
| Ignoring actual disagreement about what the 2nd amendment
| means and what policy should be, why would the ACLU invest in
| 2nd amendment rights in a world where there is already a a
| strong lobby dedicated to them.
| tiahura wrote:
| Don't need to invest. An occasional brief amicus would
| suffice.
| flyingfences wrote:
| Hell, even refraining from filing opposing briefs would
| suffice.
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| That "strong" lobby is dangerously corrupt and currently
| bleeding membership because of it. They've also turned
| themselves into a form of religion and not capable of being
| a rational actor.
| padseeker wrote:
| are you referring to the NRA or the ACLU here?
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| NRA yes. However, it's about time. In it's place are a
| much more modern groups of smaller, more motivated, more
| focused, and entirely grassroots.
|
| SAF and GOA have done more than NRA in the past 10 years
| anyhow. The only people sad about NRA dissolving are the
| people internally doing it.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Please let's not rehash that 2008 Heller and 2010 McDonald
| have settled that 2A has absolutely always been an
| individual right - even if you don't like that outcome.
|
| But apparently trying to hide a fact might make it change!
| newsclues wrote:
| That DA is the son of left wing terrorists.
|
| The FBI refers to the Weather Underground organization as
| domestic terrorists. [1]
|
| If you rob an armoured car and kill people for a terrorist
| organizations that sounds like being a terrorist to me.
|
| But you have the right, along with the ACLU, to defend
| terrorists.
| colpabar wrote:
| Ummmm fact check time! Actually they were never convicted of
| terrorism so even though they murdered people and bombed
| government offices they're technically not terrorists. Stop
| spreading misinformation!
| compiler-guy wrote:
| Regardless, that isn't the ACLU's normal fight.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Consider what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) had to
| say about pandemic management in 2008:
|
| "The notion that we need to 'trade liberty for security' is
| misguided and dangerous. Public health concerns cannot be
| addressed with law enforcement or national security tools."
|
| 13 years later, in a guest essay in The New York Times, the ACLU
| proclaimed that:
|
| "the real threat to civil liberties comes from states banning
| vaccine and mask mandates".
|
| Think what you want about these policies, but the shift in ACLU
| values is real.
| manesioz wrote:
| Relevant past thread:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27414920
| jimt1234 wrote:
| Debate is dead, replaced by the echo chamber. Sadly, the ACLU has
| adapted to this.
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| I'm a lifelong member of the ACLU. During all the years, I've
| disagreed with numerous things they have done and that they do
| presently, including this involvement in politics. However, there
| are few organizations doing the legal representation that they do
| on behalf of the poor and the marginalized, and for that I
| continue to support them. Insisting that an organization
| perfectly fit my personal preferences is a fool's errand. As with
| everything in life, I don't want to fall into the trap that
| perfect becomes the enemy of good. The ACLU ain't perfect, but
| it's certainly doing good work that IMHO merits my continued
| support.
| ss108 wrote:
| What areas re: "poor and marginalized" are you referring to?
| Seems like there are numerous focused orgs for all of the
| issues they work on, no?
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| Sure. But I don't have the time (nor realistically the
| ability) to review each one and determine which one is as
| effective at the ACLU in that representation.
| jimbokun wrote:
| They will only support poor and marginalized that say the
| things the ACLU likes and don't say things the ACLU doesn't
| like.
| sumnuyungi wrote:
| In Heard's case, the ACLU is creating an ambassador position
| and crafting the credentials for the ambassador they wish to
| hire (the op-ed). Knowing the level of deception they're
| engaging in - and not from a low-level employee but from their
| general counsel - how do you trust/verify any claims the ACLU
| makes?
| nickff wrote:
| If the article is correct that they're selling their services
| to parties in private civil suits, along with positions in the
| organization (for use by the individual for publicity), I think
| you should reconsider your support. The ACLU was once an
| effective advocate for free speech, but the fact that they're
| selling themselves to either side of a private dispute should
| be a sign that the ACLU has changed.
|
| edit: this is all premised on the idea that you were supporting
| them for their old 'free speech' mission, rather than the new
| 'values', which I now realize may have been in error.
| ternaryoperator wrote:
| Thanks for your thoughtful comment. As you sensed, I
| supported their old mission and parts of their new mission.
|
| However, I agree that if they view their new mission to be
| "selling themselves" to one side or the other, that would
| indeed detract from my willingness to continue supporting
| them long-term.
| nickff wrote:
| Thanks for sharing more of your perspective.
|
| I just can't imagine what conversations happened inside the
| organization, where they were willing to ghost write for
| Heard and sell off a position to her, then switch to taking
| money from the other side; all of this in a completely
| private dispute with no public interest on either side,
| other than visibility. This whole situation seems absurd to
| me.
|
| Were they desperate for money? Or fans of Amber Heard? Or
| were they swept up in enthusiasm about a high-profile case
| of spousal abuse? I am not aware of the ACLU taking a
| general position on defamation suits between private
| parties in the past.
| natch wrote:
| "If the article is correct"
|
| The default position on most articles, especially critical
| ones, should be that they have utterly failed to accurately
| grasp and convey the key issues. This seems to be a universal
| law not just of journalism, but of knowledge sharing in
| general, especially where controversy exists.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| I had a friend working with one of their lawyers and she was
| amazing. I can't agree with an article that says to quit
| helping a group that is still fighting for civil liberties,
| even if I don't agree with their following cancel culture hook,
| line, and sinker. Maybe someday they'll go too far though I
| suppose.
| leephillips wrote:
| Whether you think they are still fighting for civil liberties
| depends on what you think civil liberties are.
|
| Recently they have been supporting the "civil liberty" of men
| such as Lia Thomas to compete on women's sports teams. I
| don't see that as a defense of anyone's liberties, but rather
| as an attack against the liberties of female athletes, and of
| women in general. They are on the attack against women's sex-
| based rights.
|
| I've stopped supporting them.
|
| I used to support them even though I was disappointed in
| their 2nd amendment stances, because their work on 1st, 4th,
| and 5th amendment issues was so valuable. But now they've
| turned into a misogynist organization, actively campaigning
| against civil liberties.
| jimbokun wrote:
| They are now selectively fighting for some civil liberties
| for some people, and actively fighting against some civil
| liberties for other people.
| escapedmoose wrote:
| Agreed. The ability to support a cause for the greater good,
| even if some of it makes you uncomfortable, is just a sign that
| you're not totally brainwashed by one "camp" or another, imo.
| It's a symptom of retaining individual thought while working
| toward collective progress. It would be far more troubling to
| be part of a movement that operates fully in lock--step.
|
| This being the internet, I feel the need to attach a disclaimer
| that there are limits to this general rule, but I don't think
| the ACLU is currently crossing them.
| dnissley wrote:
| The problem with this is that it's the mindset of a frog being
| boiled. Just one more degree won't hurt me.
| vkou wrote:
| The problem with this problem is that there isn't a better
| alternative.
|
| There's a lot of people in this thread complaining about how
| the ACLU is ruined because they are no longer free speech
| absolutists.
|
| That's not why I give, or ever gave them money. I give them
| money because they solve all sorts of other problems. If the
| biggest problem in your life is 'the far american right can't
| speak as loudly as it likes', that's certainly terrible, but
| it pales in comparison to the harm of all the other civil
| liberty violations that the ACLU tackles.
| jimbokun wrote:
| Nice to know you consider protecting a fundamental human
| right trivial.
| atdrummond wrote:
| There are plenty of orgs that tackle portions of what the
| ACLU used to - enough that I'm sure with 3 or 4 donations
| one could replace the former ACLU donations one made.
|
| For example, FIRE has done way more for campus free speech
| issues this last decade or two than the ACLU despite a
| considerably smaller budget. Between them, Institute for
| Justice, and EFF, I don't miss my ACLU donations much.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| _" FIRE has done way more for campus free speech issues
| this last decade or two than the ACLU despite a
| considerably smaller budget"_
|
| You mean conservative speech? Or has FIRE actually
| defended speech they despised, like the ACLU used to?
| atdrummond wrote:
| I'm not a conservative or right wing in any way. FIRE
| doesn't turn away people based on their political views
| or the political content of their speech as far as I
| know; I would stop donating if that were the case.
| pmoriarty wrote:
| See:
|
| _" The Conservatives Behind the Campus 'Free Speech'
| Crusade"_[1]
|
| and:
|
| *"What the Campus 'Free Speech' Crusade Won't Say"[2]
|
| [1] - https://prospect.org/education/conservatives-
| behind-campus-f...
|
| [2] - https://www.alternet.org/2016/09/what-campus-free-
| speech-cru...
| fieryscribe wrote:
| I'm not sure why you're implying that FIRE "despises"
| speech; perhaps you see them as conservative. That said,
| here's are some recent situations in which FIRE has taken
| the side of what would be under the general
| progressive/liberal umbrella:
|
| * https://www.thefire.org/cases/new-york-university-
| administra...
|
| * https://www.thefire.org/cases/catholic-university-of-
| america...
|
| * https://www.thefire.org/cases/suny-brockport-event-
| featuring...
|
| There are more, for sure, but hopefully this points you
| in the right direction.
| Shebanator wrote:
| You should re-read the comment you are replying to. You
| misunderstood.
| fieryscribe wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're suggesting. This is the comment:
|
| > FIRE has done way more for campus free speech issues
| this last decade or two ...
|
| > You mean conservative speech? Or has FIRE actually
| defended speech they despised, like the ACLU used to?
|
| It seems to imply that FIRE has done way more for
| conservative campus free speech issues. I supplied
| examples of times when FIRE supported non-conservative
| campus free speech. I'm not quite clear how else to read
| that comment, but would love your take.
| euroclear wrote:
| You can find a list of cases on their web site. I don't
| think they are a conservative organization, either.
|
| https://www.thefire.org/category/cases/
| vkou wrote:
| And what has FIRE done for, say, minority voting rights
| in the south? Police harassment?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| If you want to support those causes, wouldn't the SPLC be
| a better method?
| vkou wrote:
| Why the SPLC over the ACLU, if their missions largely
| overlap?
|
| I give to both, FYI.
|
| If you don't give a crap about all the social causes, and
| just care about alt-right speech, I agree, the ACLU is
| not the organization you should donate to! In that case,
| I also can't say I care very much for your vision of the
| problems in this country, but it's your opinion,
| everyone's free to have one.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I think the point of the article and general consensus
| here is that their missions should _not_ overlap as much
| as they do.
|
| Or as the ACLU puts it, on why they defend abhorrent
| groups:
|
| _" The ACLU is frequently asked to explain its defense
| of certain people or groups -- particularly controversial
| and unpopular entities such as the Ku Klux Klan, the
| Nation of Islam, and the National Socialist Party of
| America. We do not defend them because we agree with
| them. Rather we defend their right to free expression and
| free assembly.
|
| Historically, the people whose opinions are the most
| controversial or extreme are the people whose rights are
| most often threatened. Once the government has the power
| to violate one person's rights, it can use that power
| against everyone. We work to stop the erosion of civil
| liberties before it's too late."_
| https://www.aclu.org/about-aclu
|
| Which is somewhat different than the SPLC:
|
| _" The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the
| South and beyond, working in partnership with communities
| to dismantle white supremacy, strengthen intersectional
| movements, and advance the human rights of all people."_
| https://www.splcenter.org/about
| jimbokun wrote:
| > but it's your opinion, everyone's free to have one.
|
| Clearly not any more, especially if the ACLU were to have
| their way.
| atdrummond wrote:
| I think there are more effective organizations to tackle
| those specific issues, too. The Brennan Center comes to
| mind for the former.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| > If the biggest problem in your life is 'the far american
| right can't speak as loudly as it likes', that's certainly
| terrible, but it pales in comparison to the harm of all the
| other civil liberty violations that the ACLU tackles.
|
| Speech is the most important non-violent right that we
| have, regardless of who is speaking or about what issue.
| Without Freedom of Speech, corporations or the government
| could simply censor the other liberties out of existence.
| You can't be a civil rights absolutist without being a free
| speech absolutist.
| seoaeu wrote:
| > Speech is the most important non-violent right that we
| have
|
| Really? More important than the right to vote? Than the
| right not to be arbitrarily detained? Than the right to a
| fair trial?
|
| I strongly believe in the importance of free speech when
| it comes to true statements or criticism of the
| government. But the idea that the right to spread
| deliberately false information or directly incite
| violence is not just a fundamental right, but the most
| important fundamental right? Honestly, I just don't find
| the argument very compelling
| laverya wrote:
| Yes, the right to free speech is more important than
| those rights because _it is what lets you say that the
| other rights have been violated_. If you have the right
| to vote, but not the right to say that you were prevented
| from voting, _you don 't actually have the right to
| vote_.
| donthellbanme wrote:
| didibus wrote:
| I disagree. Never in my life has the best solution to
| anything been the extreme, instead it's always been
| balanced and nuanced solution that have ended being more
| optimal. I've observed this in science, physics,
| engineering, medicine, culinary, inter-social relations,
| business, in everything.
|
| Based just on that, I already get a red flag when someone
| says that an extreme free speech position, such as free
| speech absolutists, is the best solution to have a
| liberal society with civil liberties.
|
| In my experience, balanced and nuanced is always better,
| and you must always have provisions to handle special
| cases, there will always be special cases.
|
| Free speech is very important, like you said, beyond
| violence, how else you going to influence and assert any
| improvement or changes to defend, retain or ask for more
| liberties?
|
| But speech can remain civil and respectful, it doesn't
| have to include slander, or threats to a person, insults,
| ridicule, raised voices, talking over people, etc.
|
| And then you have the conflict with other liberties. Yes
| governement shouldn't be able to restrict anyone's
| speech, no matter what. But between themselves, citizens
| should be allowed recourse to slander for example. They
| should have ways to protect their reputation when it is
| being harmed by someone intending to harm it through
| misinformation, lies, and false accusations, and that
| would require the government to intervene and uphold
| someone's right to their reputation.
|
| Also, we should be allowed to create communities with
| code of conducts that include speech behavior. If you
| come to my house and start bad-mouthing my daughter,
| insulting her, and I kick you out, you shouldn't be able
| to sue me for violating your free speech rights. I should
| be allowed to control the code of conduct of others in my
| own home. Similarly on my website, in my comment section,
| or if I am a company running a social community space I
| too should be allowed to do so in order to protect my
| business. Robo-calls, spammers, calling me or leaving
| spam in my email, website, I should be allowed to block
| them, or have some service that auto-censors them, it
| shouldn't be that their creator can prevent me from
| blocking them because it infringes on their creator's
| right to free speech. Same for bot accounts and all that.
| So clearly I feel there needs to be special provisions
| for exceptions to the right to free speech, and when
| exactly it applies, to whom, about what, and how the
| speech itself is conducted and what the speech is
| actually saying, is it false accusations, slander,
| threats, spam, etc.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| No, the frog doesn't know it's being boiled at all.
|
| Being fully aware of an organization's good and bad behaviors
| is the opposite of being unknowingly boiled. Even if one
| chooses to continue supporting the organization in spite of
| some disagreement.
| rocqua wrote:
| I believe the complaint here is actually more "The ACLU is no
| longer defending my political enemies".
|
| The issue is not that the ACLU is taking on causes the author
| disagrees with. The issue is that the ACLU has switched away
| from "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the
| death your right to say it" thinking. And instead they are
| taking a few cases of "I disapprove of what you say and will
| therefore not defend you". Let alone the weird Heard case that
| seems to be "You give me money so I give you backing and
| legitimacy".
| daenz wrote:
| >In 1978, the ACLU successfully defended the right of neo-Nazis
| to march in Skokie, Illinois, a community populated by Holocaust
| survivors.
|
| Is it any surprise that the ACLU has succumbed to the tide of
| public opinion? Their support of free speech in 1978 meant
| supporting the rights of literal neo-Nazis. Do people understand
| how unpopular that is? Their adherence to higher principles (free
| speech), when it results in those actions, cannot be tolerated in
| the modern era. The ACLU simply wouldn't survive.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| Your attitude is completely wrong in the same way the ACLU has
| gone wrong. Defending speech _as a right_ means defending it
| for everyone in all cases, most especially when it is
| unpopular. Otherwise you're not acting as a defense of free
| speech, but as an amplifier of speech you agree with. You
| become the Committee In Favor Of Speech We Like, which is
| pretty worthless.
| daenz wrote:
| I think I miscommunicated my point. I agree with you, I am
| merely providing my perspective as to why they no longer hold
| those principles: because it "cannot be tolerated" in the
| modern era. We're still in an era of "punch people whose
| views i don't like."
| munk-a wrote:
| We see such bias within the Twitter sphere - but outside of
| that people are still a lot more reasonable. There is a
| fair bit of fear, I think, that mainstream allowance of
| neo-nazi groups is empowering recruitment but the real core
| of the issue is extremism being fed by a lack of general
| education.
| JasonFruit wrote:
| I see what you are saying. Glad we agree. That attitude
| sets people who could make common cause at each other's
| throats instead.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| > Their adherence to higher principles (free speech), when it
| results in those actions, cannot be tolerated in the modern
| era.
|
| Why not?
|
| I remember when the definition of supporting free speech was
| supporting speech you find repugnant and I really can't think
| of a group who's speech I find more repugnant than Nazis, both
| conceptually and contextually.
| daenz wrote:
| It cannot be tolerated because people are willing to commit
| and support acts of violence against those that use repugnant
| free speech. Whether it can be tolerated is orthogonal to
| whether or not it should be tolerated. I am merely commenting
| on the observation that more people than ever cannot tolerate
| free speech.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Have they gone against those on the left who advocate and
| even perform violence against certain groups? Why haven't
| they taken active stance against these monsters who want
| attack others?
| [deleted]
| irrational wrote:
| The ACLU has often made voting easier for me. I live in a state
| with mail voting. We get a big booklet with all the issues to be
| voted on spelled out with pros and cons submitted by people and
| organizations. Typically I just flip through each one to see if
| the ACLU is for or against it, then I vote the opposite. There
| has only been a single time that I agreed with them and voted the
| way they want me to vote. They are a great litmus test of most
| issues.
| toothrot wrote:
| It's interesting that the author refers to unspecified "partisan
| stances". Many of the political positions of the last year that
| have been described as partisan are actually globally regarded as
| human rights.
|
| Human rights are nonpartisan. The ACLU has stuck to it's guns on
| that, despite the the overwhelmingly biased political climate.
|
| I think it's silly that this thinly sourced hit-piece is on the
| front page of hacker news.
| incomingpain wrote:
| Wow comments are heated in here. Going to put my oven gloves on
| to type this one.
|
| Check out these other articles:
|
| ACLU is split by internal debate over First Amendment support for
| hate speech https://www.abajournal.com/news/article/aclu-is-
| split-by-int...
|
| Once a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity
| Crisis https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-
| speech.html?...
|
| The Left Needs the A.C.L.U. to Keep Defending Awful Speech
| https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/07/opinion/aclu-free-speech....
|
| The ACLU made the decision to change. You can agree with that or
| not; if you dont like it... dont give them your money. That isn't
| the biggest concern.
|
| The bigger concern is 'who the nazis are'.
|
| Google has an employee who wrote:
|
| "Today it is often 1 or 2 steps to nazis. If we understand that
| PragerU, Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro et al are nazis using the
| dog whistles you mention in step 1. I can receive these
| recommendations regardless of the content of what I'm looking at,
| and I have recorded thousands of internet users sharing the same
| experience.."
|
| Which spawned a hilarious article:
| https://babylonbee.com/news/notorious-nazi-leader-ben-shapir...
|
| The problem with the political polarization is that you attribute
| your political opponents as being 'the worst'. There's plenty of
| examples of right-wing folks calling people nazis. Elon Musk
| called Trudeau Hitler. So did lefties, Bill Maher, russel brand,
| and several others: https://globalnews.ca/news/8627659/elon-musk-
| justin-trudeau-...
|
| It's not that the ACLU lost their way or for that matter all
| those people calling everyone nazis. It's that virtually all of
| north america has lost their way. We need to get back to talking
| to each other again.
| native_samples wrote:
| In the Trudeau case the comparison is at least not 100% wrong,
| as is usually the case when the N-word crops up. Hitler
| famously engaged in forced medical experiments on people who
| were deemed disposable classes of society, and he brooked no
| dissent or resistance. Regardless of how you personally feel
| about the COVID vaccines they were and are based on
| experimental new medical technology, which was then forced on
| people against their will including on people who thought it
| might harm them. And as we saw, the protestors were then
| destroyed by a leader who gave so few shits that he didn't even
| bother to turn up and talk to them, and who then engaged in
| vengeful financial attacks on family members or anyone who
| tried to support the protestors.
|
| Obviously that doesn't make Trudeau _literally_ Hitler, but the
| point of talking about WW2 is to try and learn lessons so it
| never repeats. If you 're only allowed to notice similarities
| by the time there are no differences left at all, it's already
| far too late. That's why the comparisons are always so tricky
| and fraught with controversy. On one hand, comparing everything
| to the Nazis is a tired rhetorical trick designed to shut down
| thought. On the other hand, to ensure something like that never
| happens again, people have to be willing to say -wait. That
| looks bad. That looks like something the Nazis did. That
| shouldn't be happening and maybe the people who are making it
| happen are bad people, they should be stopped. But the bar for
| it has to be high.
| jandrese wrote:
| > Regardless of how you personally feel about the COVID
| vaccines they were and are based on experimental new medical
| technology
|
| This is not technically true. They were based on research
| from 1984, which started development in 2005 and was more or
| less ready and waiting for an application by 2010. They were
| much less experimental than the Polio or Smallpox vaccines
| were when they were introduced.
| resfirestar wrote:
| A fairly short piece that makes the same points that have been
| made a million times about the ACLU's apparent changes, using the
| typical examples of the group defending the freedom of assembly
| rights of neo-nazis during the 1970s (other articles often
| mention they were well known for simultaneously defending the
| same rights for communists). The 2021 NYT article linked within
| is a more interesting read.
|
| What I'd be curious to see on this topic is a review of what the
| ACLU was up to during the 90s and 00s, when anti war and
| environmental activism were the biggest targets for suppression,
| and privacy and LGBT rights became major issues. Would people
| today see the ACLU's activity in those periods as still too
| focused on "partisan" causes, or is this really a post-Trump
| phenomenon?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Just look up ACLU's response to the federal government's effort
| to describe environmental groups like the Sierra Club as
| "mainstream organizations with known or possible links to eco-
| terrorism" in the Bush-Cheney Era, c.2008. They definitely seem
| to have lost their minds and their historical agenda post-
| Trump. For example, it's worth reading their response to the
| 2001 attacks:
|
| https://www.aclu.org/other/defense-freedom-time-crisis
|
| My own view is that the leadership of both parties really would
| like to install Chinese-style mass surveillance practices, and
| the motivation primarily seems to be the desire to contain
| popular anger over declining standards of living across the
| USA. The creation of the Rust Belt via the implementation of
| neoliberal trade policies played a key role in the rise of
| Trump, and leaders of both parties pushed that through on the
| behalf of their corporate masters. Of course, Trump did nothing
| about it, so the populist anger is still smoldering.
|
| If implementing draconian mass surveillance is the plan, then
| buying off the ACLU is a step in that direction.
| tiahura wrote:
| The list of the formerly respectable that lost their minds in
| the rise of Trump is depressingly long.
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| I've been a relatively big ACLU donor, big enough to have been
| appointed an "Individual Giving Officer." I've met with some of
| their leadership.
|
| They've begun taking positions _against_ individual civil rights.
| They 've always been anti-2nd amendment, which I can understand,
| but this has escalated to the point that I think they're often on
| the wrong side of 1a issues as well.
|
| I won't donate to them anymore. I regret that I did in the past.
| mike00632 wrote:
| To be fair to the ACLU, the interpretation of the Second
| Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal
| guns independent of a militia is a very recent interpretation
| (Heller, 2008). It's also had disastrous consequences. It would
| be like expecting the ACLU to soon advocate against women's
| bodily rights in a few years because a new Supreme Court
| decision changed the long-held interpretation of the
| Constitution.
| [deleted]
| javagram wrote:
| Correction: until 2008 in Heller, the Supreme Court had never
| clearly and definitively ruled the 2A is an individual right.
| It had previously referred to the 2A as an individual right
| in dicta (non binding opinions) that date back to the 19th
| century, and many courts and legislators back to the 19th
| century had also done so.
|
| The interpretation of the 2A as a "collective" right
| associated with membership in the national guard/militia is
| largely a creation of 20th century lawyers.
|
| That said, I personally believe the 2A as intended by the
| founders is likely no longer suited for the modern world and
| some amendment to limit its scope would be reasonable.
| dionian wrote:
| According to US Code, a large portion of the regular people
| of the United States _are_ members of an "unorganized"
| militia. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
| javagram wrote:
| True, but those who say the 2A is a "collective" right
| for the militia would not usually say that any male aged
| 17 to 45 should be able to purchase an AR-15 via their
| membership in the unorganized militia and Selective
| Service card.
|
| The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A
| right into the idea that Congress shouldn't pass a law to
| take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which
| makes very little sense.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A
| right into the idea that Congress shouldn't pass a law to
| take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which
| makes very little sense.
|
| Very well said. The utter incoherence of the concept
| makes it clear that the interpretation is wrong. It's
| like interpreting the First Amendment as protecting
| Congress from preventing itself from assembling and not
| the people's right to protest it.
| roamerz wrote:
| I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders was
| to protect against an orwellian government which is why
| it's more important now than ever. Most recent example:
| Ministry of Truth. Who's truth? Well whoever happens to be
| in power. This is called the rule of man not the rule of
| law.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| One person's "Orwellian" is another's "Law and order".
|
| Civil asset forfeiture is pretty Orwellian, IMO, not to
| mention a direct violation of your Fourth Amendment
| rights, yet I haven't heard of anybody using their Second
| Amendment right to protect themselves from it.
| delecti wrote:
| Generally speaking, the word for people who try using
| their Second Amendment rights to protect their Fourth
| Amendment right against civil asset forfeiture is
| "corpse".
| javagram wrote:
| The founders idealized the Roman Republic and sought to
| create a system where the central government would never
| have the power to seize control as Julius Caesar did.
|
| But I don't think turning out to the streets with AR-15s
| is an appropriate response to the government forming an
| ineffective propaganda office (ministry of truth). We've
| seen the awful cost of civil war both here at home in
| 1861-65 and recently in countries such as Syria and
| Libya. Violent revolution should be the absolute last
| resort especially in a world where total war is practiced
| and not the relatively civilized and small-scale warfare
| of the American revolution or the 1688 English
| Revolution.
|
| In practice, the US government has committed atrocities
| throughout history against citizens and the 2A did little
| to help (genocide of native Americans, discrimination
| against Germans in ww1, Japanese internment in ww2, Jim
| Crow and slavery, the civil war itself where armed
| citizens just joined whatever side they lived on, etc.)
| maxerickson wrote:
| If "Disinformation Governance Board" bothers you more
| than "Department of Homeland Security" did, you may be
| responding to what "they" want you to more than you think
| you are.
|
| I love how government is obviously incompetent, but only
| until something they do sounds conspiratorial.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders
| was to protect against an orwellian government...
|
| Orwellian is an anachronism here.
|
| It was probably meant to protect to right of the people
| to engage in a violent revolution when required, and
| enacted by people who had literally done so to create the
| United States.
| madengr wrote:
| kodah wrote:
| > It was probably meant to protect to right of the people
| to engage in a violent revolution when required, and
| enacted by people who had literally done so to create the
| United States.
|
| This is how I learned 2A. More or less, no government can
| last forever and at some point governments will need to
| be overthrown and set anew. Sound familiar?
|
| > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men
| are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator
| with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are
| Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to
| secure these rights, Governments are instituted among
| Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the
| governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes
| destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People
| to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
| Government, laying its foundation on such principles and
| organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem
| most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
|
| They even provided some basic criteria for when might be
| a good time:
|
| > Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
| established should not be changed for light and transient
| causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that
| mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are
| sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the
| forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train
| of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same
| Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute
| Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw
| off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their
| future security.
|
| I was taught that 2A was the tool that ensures that this
| section of the Declaration of Independence would still be
| relevant to their new government.
| tablespoon wrote:
| > the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an
| individual the right to have personal guns independent of a
| militia is a very recent interpretation
|
| IIRC, in colonial America, the militia was understood as
| basically "all male citizens," and its members typically used
| personal weapons.
|
| That makes the text and structure of the Second Amendment
| make a lot of sense: if a militia is necessary for security,
| and an armed populace is required for a militia, then to
| protect the militia you have to protect the right of the
| populace to be armed.
| rayiner wrote:
| It's not a "recent interpretation." There was a long period
| during the 20th century when a narrow view of the second
| amendment was favored, but in earlier eras it was regarded as
| a personal right. It was actually liberal scholars like Akhil
| Amar that did critical work laying the foundation for Heller:
| https://newrepublic.com/article/73718/second-thoughts
|
| > The key subject-nouns were simply different ways of saying
| the same thing: at the Founding, the militia was the people
| and the people were the militia. Indeed, the earlier draft of
| the amendment linked the two clauses with linchpin language
| speaking of "a well regulated militia, composed of the body
| of the people." The linchpin was later pulled out as clumsy
| and redundant. A modern translation of the amendment might
| thus be: "An armed and militarily trained citizenry being
| conducive to freedom, the right of the electorate to organize
| itself militarily shall not be infringed."
|
| Recall that the Constitution bars maintaining a standing army
| in peace time. The Framers obviously thought that the way to
| go was to round up a bunch of armed yokels (sorry, citizens)
| in times of war, instead of maintaining a permanent army.
| That is, in fact, what they did during the Revolutionary War.
|
| There's contours to that--I kind of think that the Swiss
| system where you're required to have guns, but there are
| measures for keeping them secure in peace time would be
| Constitutional. But random individuals need to be able to own
| guns without belonging to a formal "militia" because random
| individuals are supposed to _be_ the militia.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > To be fair to the ACLU, the interpretation of the Second
| Amendment as granting an individual the right to have
| personal guns independent of a militia is a very recent
| interpretation
|
| I'm sure they've heard about it, though, so that's no
| defense. The question raised in that article is: should they
| be picking and choosing which rights they defend? The
| admirable thing about the ACLU was that they would always
| defend civil liberties, because the loss of any of those is
| worse in the long run than the distastefulness of supporting
| someone you may disagree with in the short run.
| throwaway2ndam wrote:
| WalterBright wrote:
| Personally, I don't really care about gun rights. But I care
| very much about trying to deny the 2nd Amendment without a
| Constitutional Amendment. If that right can be cast aside as
| being outdated or inconvenient, what about our other rights?
|
| Which one is next to be discarded? Free speech? (That's under
| constant assault today.)
| madengr wrote:
| slg wrote:
| >They've begun taking positions against individual civil
| rights... this has escalated to the point that I think they're
| often on the wrong side of 1a issues as well.
|
| Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in
| conflict with the civil rights of another?
|
| A common example is the baker tasked with making a wedding cake
| for a gay couple. Should the baker have the civil right to
| practice their religion which does not condone gay marriage? Or
| should the gay couple have the civil right to not be
| discriminated against for their sexuality? You can't take a
| position in this situation without being against someone's
| civil rights.
|
| As the political environment in the US becomes more polarized,
| these conflicts become more common and the apolitical path
| becomes less tenable.
| parkingrift wrote:
| No one has a "civil right" to discriminate in the United
| States. The default law in the United States is that
| discrimination is illegal. The Civil Rights Act of 1964
| spells out protections against discrimination on the basis of
| race, religion, sex, or national origin.
|
| Sexual orientation is not explicitly protected, but that does
| not mean you have a "civil right" to discriminate against gay
| people. You just... have a right to be an asshole.
| [deleted]
| rayiner wrote:
| > The Civil Rights Act of 1964 spells out protections
| against discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex,
| or national origin.
|
| Only in specific, enumerated contexts, such as employment
| and public accommodations.
|
| You have a civil right to associate with whomever you want
| to, for whatever reason you want. You also have a
| Constitutional right to live according to your religion
| even when participating in the economy.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Public accomodations includes hotels, _restaurants_ , and
| other institutions open to interstate commerce, per Title
| II.
|
| The baker in question claimed they were an artist
| (separate from their bakery/restaurant public
| accomodation) and that they had the religious freedom to
| discriminate against sexual orientation based on their
| religion.
|
| The court ruled that artists are not compelled to create
| for whomever they want, but did not say that people can
| discriminate against other protected classes based on
| their religious beliefs.
| rayiner wrote:
| A bakery is generally not a restaurant under Title II,
| which defines that to mean an establishment "principally
| engaged in selling food for consumption on the premises."
|
| Title II is quite specific in what counts as a "public
| accommodation." For example, banks are not covered:
| https://www.pospislaw.com/blog/2019/02/05/banks-are-not-
| plac...
| three_seagrass wrote:
| The bakery is a public accomodation.
|
| The baker explicitly redefined his wedding cakes as his
| religious speech to avoid the Title II of the federal
| law.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| For the record I am pro-gay marriage, but your example is BS.
| The baker in your example was willing to bake them a cake.
| They were never denied a cake. What the baker was not willing
| to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming
| that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same
| as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing
| them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was
| the equivalent of compelled speech. It would be the
| equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something
| non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or
| gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the
| restaurant violated your rights. Or going to an artist who
| sells t-shirts with their standard art and saying they denied
| me service when they wouldn't let me commission a custom
| piece that they didn't like to content of.
| slg wrote:
| >What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the
| exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes
| were artistic expression and not the same as the standard
| priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create
| an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the
| equivalent of compelled speech
|
| This is just semantics of a legal argument. It is not some
| universal truth that ordering off menu puts any additional
| ethical strain on someone. If the baker would make those
| customizations for a straight couple and not a gay couple
| then the civil rights of the gay couple are being
| infringed.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Come on man, if I list services, and am willing to
| provide you those services, how did I deny you service?
| If I am not willing to go above and beyond to make you
| special creative accommodations that is not a violation
| of your rights.
|
| If my religion does not allow me to do drugs, and you
| want me to cover a cake with marijuana flowers instead of
| the standard roses, I am required to do that? Am I
| denying you service when I say I will sell you a cake
| with standard flowers but I'm not spending 16 hours
| custom making marijuana icing flowers? Putting the
| standard icing on a cake is a service and should not be
| denied, but 16 hours making something custom is art and I
| should have a choice if I want to put that creative
| energy into what you are asking for.
|
| Service was not denied, commissioning a custom work of
| artistry was. No rights were infringed.
| RyanCavanaugh wrote:
| You're conflating discrimination on the basis of the
| _product being created_ vs on the basis of _whom the
| product is being sold to_.
|
| The cake being commissioned was not materially different
| from any of the other cakes the baker made. What was
| materially different was who he was selling it to.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| I am a computer geek and suck at words, but I thought
| that is what I said. If you provide a standard service,
| you can't deny that service to people. If you have
| something different, say a wedding cake that takes tens
| of hours and is a one off custom work of art, that is
| different.
|
| I do custom software development. What is the line for
| what work I am compelled to take on versus what projects
| I can choose not to do? Would I be required to take on
| making a grindr clone if my only objections was
| religious?
| [deleted]
| a123b456c wrote:
| Honest question: which civil rights were infringed?
| alar44 wrote:
| The right to be a troglodyte, I'm guessing.
| RyanCavanaugh wrote:
| You have a civil right to participate in normal society,
| such as the purchase of everyday goods and services like
| cakes.
|
| This is what it looks like when that right is not
| enforced via mandates of business owners: https://en.wiki
| pedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Motorist_Green_Book
| slg wrote:
| Not being discriminated against based of their sexual
| orientation.
| karpierz wrote:
| > It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and
| asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change
| a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and
| then claiming the restaurant violated your rights.
|
| It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and
| asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change
| a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, _noting
| that they seem only seem to be denying black patrons off
| menu orders_ , and then claiming the restaurant violated
| your rights.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| And? Ethnic restaurants do this all the time with same
| ethnicity patrons and not me as a white guy. Shoot, they
| often even have a seperate menu for the right ethnic
| group that I never even get to see.
| hexane360 wrote:
| This discussion has been rehashed over and over again, but
| you're wrong on the facts of this case.
|
| The owner claimed that he would bake any cake, but the
| evidence shows he refused before they discussed any styling
| or even what the cake was. He would sell them cupcakes or
| prebaked items, but wouldn't bake _any_ cake, arguing it
| was compelled speech. The problem is that in the absence of
| asking for a cake which specifically mentions gay people,
| the owner 's line of argumentation works equally well for
| refusing to cook a burger for black people at a diner. By
| being a business owner in a community, you give up certain
| civil liberties because you have increased power to
| infringe upon the civil rights of others.
|
| Your analogies all fail because they consider situations
| where the customer asks the seller for a different, non-
| standard product. But that didn't happen; they were refused
| before any products were discussed.
| rayiner wrote:
| > By being a business owner in a community, you give up
| certain civil liberties because you have increased power
| to infringe upon the civil rights of others.
|
| Big [citation needed] here. The Constitution doesn't say
| you give up your rights by being a business owner and
| participating in the economy.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law. Title
| II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
|
| > Outlawed discrimination based on race, color, religion,
| or national origin in hotels, motels, restaurants,
| theaters, and all other public accommodations engaged in
| interstate commerce; exempted private clubs without
| defining the term "private".
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964#Ti
| tle...
| barry-cotter wrote:
| > Constitution doesn't matter when it's federal law.
| Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964:
|
| The US constitution overrides other US laws, not the
| other way around.
| three_seagrass wrote:
| Then cite where the constitution explicitly protects
| discrimination against protected classes.
|
| The problem citing the constitution here is it's an
| _argument from ignorance_. You can 't ignore federal laws
| just because the constitution doesn't say anything about
| them.
| syshum wrote:
| ravel-bar-foo wrote:
| Relevantly to this discussion, the civil rights act of
| 1964 also bans discrimination based on sex.
| [deleted]
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Can you point to something establishing what you say it
| true? The specific situation you reference would seem to
| totally be a violation under my argument but taht doesn't
| invalidate my argument (especially since I did not
| mention a specific baker).
|
| In the situation I presented would you grant that no
| rights are violated?
| throwaway09223 wrote:
| > Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often
| in conflict with the civil rights of another?
|
| Kind of, yes. I think where things go off the rails is where
| projection and extrapolation come into play.
|
| Recall: one of the key defining cases of the ACLU was their
| defense of (actual) neo-nazis marching in Skokie in the 70s.
|
| Contrast this with the ACLU in 2017 arguing that San
| Francisco should prevent an alt-right protest because of
| theorized violence (the protest went forward. No violence
| materialized). Volokh wrote a bit about it here:
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
| conspiracy/wp/201...
|
| There's a lot of inconsistency in the modern day ACLU. I
| think they've walked some of it back in the last few years,
| but from 2016-2020 I think they kind of lost their mind and I
| saw a lot of strong advocacy for these sort of projected
| societal norms -- don't let the bad people protest -- rather
| than the staunch defense of individual rights no matter who
| the individuals may be.
|
| I want an ACLU that isn't polarized by politics. With a focus
| on individual rights.
| slg wrote:
| You are leaving out some important context. The ACLU
| statement against those alt-right protests came in the
| immediate aftermath of a similar rally in Charlottesville
| that resulted in violence and death. People have a right to
| protest whatever their political viewpoint. However they
| don't have a right to incite violence. The ACLU no longer
| believed that these protests would be peaceful so they came
| out against them.
|
| You can argue that the ACLU made the wrong decision because
| maybe they were misinformed about the nature of the protest
| and whether it would lead to violence. But the principle
| behind their decision seems clear and obvious. They will
| support peaceful free speech and not support speech which
| incites violence.
| dendriti wrote:
| Individual rights are, by their very nature, political
| rights. There's no hard separation between the two
| concepts.
| rajin444 wrote:
| It's a shame because society needs examples of institutions
| that represent values as important as free speech. If we want
| to move forward we have to tolerate nazi speeches as long as
| they obey the law.
|
| When institutions like that disappear it's a lot harder for
| individuals to keep up the fight.
| countvonbalzac wrote:
| You say the ACLU is anti-2nd amendment. The author of the
| article says they're pro-second amendment: "To be fair, the
| organization still goes to bat for some causes that are
| associated with conservatives and free-speech absolutists,
| including the right to bear arms"?
|
| After some preliminary research, looks like the ACLU is pro-
| second amendemnt -
| https://web.archive.org/web/20080629021739/http://www.aclunv...
|
| But they recognize that the second amendment was written with
| racist intent -
| https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1419294620417155074
| sbierwagen wrote:
| If the ACLU stated that the 1st Amendment was written with
| racist intent, would you interpret this as the ACLU
| _supporting_ it?
| xbar wrote:
| Racists wrote the 1st Amendment.
| raarts wrote:
| Proof that - just as good people sometimes do bad things
| - bad people can do good things.
| rayiner wrote:
| > But they recognize that the second amendment was written
| with racist intent -
| https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1419294620417155074
|
| Remarkable. The Founders totes protected the right to bear
| arms because of "racism," and not because they had just used
| the right to bear arms to found for themselves a new country
| free of the British monarchy. That makes total sense.
|
| Collapsing the entire history of a nation into a narrative
| about a minority within the nation.
| marcusverus wrote:
| The ACLU site explicitly says that they don't recognize the
| 2A as an individual right.[0]
|
| > 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. For seven decades, the
| Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was
| widely understood to have endorsed that view. This position
| is currently under review and is being updated by the ACLU
| National Board in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in
| D.C. v. Heller in 2008.
|
| > In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4
| vote, the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller held for
| the first time that the Second Amendment protects an
| individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not
| associated with a state militia. The ACLU disagrees with the
| Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right
| protected by the Second Amendment.
|
| [0]https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment
| dionian wrote:
| "well-regulated" means "well-armed" or "well-equipped", not
| "well-regulated by laws". cf.
| https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/cons/wellregu.htm
|
| See my other comment below about the precise legal
| definition of militia.
| gjm11 wrote:
| That page neither argues that, nor supports the view
| that, "well-regulated" means well armed or well equipped.
|
| The page argues that it means something like "running
| well", but the examples they give seem to me to fit
| better with a slightly different meaning that also
| matches the etymology of the word (in Latin a _regula_ is
| a rule; it comes from the word meaning to rule or
| govern). I think "well-regulated" means some combination
| of: well organized, well governed, well adjusted, well
| controlled.
|
| In the Second Amendment it may or may not have
| specifically the sense of "well
| organized/governed/adjusted/controlled _by the nation 's
| government_". But it's definitely not just talking about
| a militia that has enough weapons, or a militia that is
| good at shooting the people it wants to shoot; a well-
| regulated militia is one that is well organized and that
| makes good choices about who to shoot and why.
|
| (It also seems clear to me that "well-regulated" is not
| there to be any part of the _point_ of the Second
| Amendment. I think it 's mentioned in passing, possibly
| exactly to reassure people who might otherwise worry that
| the 2A is trying to set things up so that armed mobs
| terrorize everyone. "For a free state to remain secure,
| it needs a militia -- yes, yes, of course it has to be a
| well regulated one -- and so the people must be able to
| have weapons.")
| kristjansson wrote:
| More like 'appropriately armed' or 'properly equipped',
| no? "well-armed" and "well-equipped" imply a surfeit of
| arms and equipment, whereas well-regulated connotes
| balance or homeostasis
| ameister14 wrote:
| I don't think it's actually just arms and equipment. It
| means 'well-ordered.' It's the ability to call up
| organize and elect leadership from the people at need,
| among many other things.
|
| For example, Article I Section 8 provides Congress the
| power
|
| "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the
| land and naval Forces;"
|
| It's in a similar manner that the 2nd should treat
| 'regulated' militias.
| xbar wrote:
| I am sad about this set of facts about the ACLUs position.
| Longer than the ACLU has held its opinion, the Constitution
| and the writings of the Founders, both before and after its
| ratification, ascribe all of the rights in the Bill of
| Rights to individuals, including the 2nd Amendment
| specifically.
|
| I have long been an ACLU member and donor. Despite my
| differences of opinion on some matters, I have been
| grateful that they have fought in the name of rights in a
| great many cases. I do wish they would take a broader view
| on their mandate on Civil Liberties, today and tomorrow.
| ikiris wrote:
| That doesn't mean they're against the amendment, just that
| they disagree with your interpretation of it.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| And Heller, and non-binding opinions of it from the last
| 200 years.
|
| If I interpret the first amendment to only apply to brown
| eyed people, and then defend that very odd
| interpretation, am I still a defender of the first
| amendment?
| mLuby wrote:
| If you interpret the 4th amendment's "papers" to mean
| only tree-based sheets, not documents which might be
| electronic, are you really a defender of the 4th
| amendment?
|
| > The right of the people to be secure in their persons,
| houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable
| searches and seizures, shall not be violated...
| ameister14 wrote:
| >But they recognize that the second amendment was written
| with racist intent
|
| That's a pretty weird argument; I get the Patrick Henry thing
| with the Virginia Declaration of Rights but that doesn't even
| establish the 2nd amendment as we know it.
|
| Hell, we actually have the reasoning here in Federalist 46:
|
| "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans
| possess over the people of almost every other nation, the
| existence subordinate governments to which the people are
| attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed,
| forms a barrier against the enterprizes of ambition, more
| insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form
| can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in
| the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as
| the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to
| trust the people with arms. "
|
| I'll read her book to see what she thinks I suppose because
| she's a prominent historian and surely knows more than me but
| it still feels strange.
| devman0 wrote:
| 1a issues have gotten a lot more complicated in recent years as
| people try to use 'free speech' as cover to rally for causes
| that marginalize, harass, and ultimately remove rights from
| others that the ACLU also wishes to protect.
|
| They are basically experiencing a "Paradox of Tolerance"
| problem at an organizational level and still haven't really
| figured it out, and to be fair it's a tough problem.
| dionidium wrote:
| I don't accept that this is new. This has _always_ been the
| tension in this debate. It was the tension when they
| supported the Nazi 's right to march in Skokie and it was the
| tension for 200-years-worth of arguing about it before that.
|
| And it's a tension that the ACLU once took a clear (and
| extremely controversial) position on.
| gameman144 wrote:
| I hear the Paradox of Tolerance whipped out in discussions of
| how best to curb free speech before it harms others. I'm
| always genuinely curious about this, since it seems to me
| that this curb is already really well-defined: free _speech_
| does not imply free action inspired by that speech.
|
| We already have laws against speech which causes imminent and
| material harm (e.g. libel laws, incitement of violence), and
| beyond that it seems like the Paradox of Tolerance doesn't
| actually apply here: nobody is advocating that we should
| tolerate the whole slippery slope of action, most advocates
| (myself included) carve out tolerance _explicitly_ for speech
| alone.
| spion wrote:
| Speech inspires action. There is a lot of legally allowed
| action that can still cause plenty of harm, and speech can
| stimulate that action.
|
| I don't have a solution, but we can't pretend that speech
| isn't much more powerful in today's society - if it were
| the profession "social media influencer" would not exist.
|
| IMO we have systems today (social networks) that make
| previously unspreadable speech pathological by creating a
| brain-virus-spreading environment (which is why things go
| viral, literally). Furthermore the environment favors
| evolution towards short, poorly thought out, poorly
| reviewed, "engaging" (and enraging) yellow-press like
| content.
| jimbokun wrote:
| > Speech inspires action.
|
| Welcome to the PreCrime enforcement era.
| spion wrote:
| Its the same problem as the yellow press, and we'll
| probably arrive the same solution (people learning to
| completely ignore random bullshit they read on social
| media)
| spion wrote:
| Here is an example on what speech on social media did
| over the past couple of years: https://threadreaderapp.co
| m/thread/1458881015917678594.html
|
| and this is unfortunately not an isolated case.
| nradov wrote:
| Inspiration isn't the same as causality. What specific
| harm are you referring to?
|
| Speech isn't more powerful today than before. Speech by
| printed pamphlets was a key factor in violent American
| revolution.
|
| And there's no such thing as a brain virus. Now you're
| just making things up.
| ameister14 wrote:
| >And there's no such thing as a brain virus. Now you're
| just making things up.
|
| Brain affects the IBM PC by replacing the boot sector of
| a floppy disk with a copy of the virus. The real boot
| sector is moved to another sector and marked as bad.
| Infected disks usually have five kilobytes of bad
| sectors. The disk label is usually changed to (c)Brain,
| and the following text can be seen in infected boot
| sectors: Welcome to the Dungeon (c)
| 1986 Amjads (pvt) Ltd VIRUS_SHOE RECORD V9.0 Dedicated to
| the dynamic memories of millions of viruses who are no
| longer with us today - Thanks GOODNESS!!! BEWARE OF THE
| er..VIRUS : this program is catching program follows
| after these messages....$#@%$@!!
| spion wrote:
| Social media is an environment for spreading brain
| viruses. Here is how it works (with Twitter as an
| example, even without an algorithmic timeline):
|
| A person tweets something. They have N followers
|
| A subset of those followers may see the tweet (the
| equivalent to getting close to an infected person), and a
| further subset of those will click retweet (the
| equivalent to getting infected)
|
| The proces then repeats with their follower's followers
| and so on (exponentially)
|
| As such, Twitter is an environment where various ideas
| and their mutations are generated in a similar manner to
| viral organisms, and the "fittest" ones survive and
| spread exponentially. You could probably even calculate
| the R0 of a tweet (i.e. average number of retweets, quote
| tweets etc caused by a previous tweet)
|
| All of this in turn means that the fitness function of
| the environment is incredibly important. Now, would you
| say Twitter as an environment encourages carefully
| checking information with other sources or for
| contradictions before clicking retweet? Or does it favor
| tweets that provoke a quick emotional reaction and a
| retweet within a couple of seconds of reading them?
|
| Note: for specific harm, I posted an example of what
| social media can do to people (link is on threadreader ht
| tps://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1458881015917678594.html
| ). I realize its long, but its really hard to explain the
| problem without seeing the effect in its entirety,
| especially given how we all (me included) hold free
| speech in high regard. (Yes I still do, but I now also
| understand how easily it can be abused to cause
| immeasurable harm in our new social media environments,
| and I think we must be at least aware of this)
| nradov wrote:
| Nah, you're just making things up and haven't provided
| any valid evidence to justify restrictions on free
| speech. Stupid people have always believed stupid things
| since long before social media. Remember the days of
| forwarded hoax email chains?
|
| Words are not harmful, unless they're a specific and
| credible threat or incitement to violence. People
| claiming otherwise are defining down "harm" to such an
| extent as to make the term meaningless.
| alar44 wrote:
| Once people start saying speech is violence I exit the
| conversation. Generally said by the most white bread
| privileged people because they've never experienced
| actual, real violence.
| spion wrote:
| The ironic thing here is that the main reason you've seen
| that kind of claim is because social media tends to
| spread the most outrageous / novel / radical kinds of
| speech (in turn further causing radicalization among the
| recipients of it)
| spion wrote:
| I'm not even suggesting restrictions to free speech.
|
| All I am suggesting is that speech can be incredibly
| harmful in ways we haven't realized yet.
|
| I posted the evidence, I can post a paper too if you like
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aap9559
|
| More discussion about vulnerability to cognitive biases,
| speech that abuses and exploits them.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzzjbSkrLCQ and how
| social media design supports and reinforces this kind of
| speech over others.
|
| To see what I mean by harm, read the threadreader link.
|
| My best idea so far is similar to the solution we had for
| yellow press and tabloids. We learned to recognize and be
| aware of manipulative kinds of journalism. If we are all
| careful, more aware and more skeptical - especially on
| social media - there will be less opportunity to be
| duped.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I really think it's true that speech isn't much more
| powerful in today's society. We just don't remember how
| powerful it was in the past, because the problems caused
| by free speech are precisely the kinds of problems that
| the grand narrative of history tends to smooth out. We
| talk about pathological Internet speech causing political
| violence, for example - but do you know about the years-
| long bombing campaign by the Weather Underground in the
| 70s, or the time in 1954 when five congresspeople were
| shot on the floor of the House?
| spion wrote:
| It is more powerful because it reaches more people - and
| furthermore it has exponential amplifiers (social
| networks) that encourage the most pathological kinds of
| it.
|
| Read this thread, and then multiply this approximate
| scenario by a _million_ : https://threadreaderapp.com/thr
| ead/1458881015917678594.html
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Pathological medical misinformation causing widespread
| damage certainly isn't a new phenomenon. Do you know
| about the lobotomy trend, where 40,000 Americans had
| their brains sliced apart for no good reason? (Have you
| seen the news clippings of deniers and snake oil ads for
| the Spanish Flu?)
| spion wrote:
| Precisely, and this is genuinely scary. At the time,
| there was no sophisticated evolutionary environment that
| spreads "information" at lightning speed with a fitness
| function tuned for "engagement" and bad ideas still found
| ways to spread.
|
| Nowadays a random tweet can (sometimes accidentally)
| mobilize a mob with pitchforks.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| What I'm trying to say is that there _was_ such an
| evolutionary environment. The 60s were full of deadly
| riots mobilized by some minor rumor - the Watts riot, for
| example, began as rumors of police misconduct in a drunk
| driving arrest. We just don 't think of it that way. We
| lump together the Watts riot with hundreds upon hundreds
| of similar incidents and talk about the state of race
| relations that contributed to all of them rather than the
| specific causes of each individual one.
| moistly wrote:
| The incredible irony that the free-speech advocates are
| downvoting your speech.
| gameman144 wrote:
| Is that irony, though? Not that I downvoted the parent
| comment or anything, but inasmuch as downvoting is saying
| "I don't think your comment is of high quality", that's
| totally not inconsistent with free speech.
|
| There's a difference between saying "I think XYZ is
| wrong" and saying "I don't think people should be able to
| say XYZ", and downvoting feels _much_ more like the
| former.
| spion wrote:
| Yeah, I'd prefer engagement instead. Thought on these
| things must be refined, and we should probably do it fast
| because the knee-jerk solution (censorship) is taking
| over really fast.
| archhn wrote:
| If someone says they don't want millions of illegal
| immigrants pouring into the country, are they "rallying for
| causes that marginalize, harass, and remove rights from
| others?" If someone says they don't support gay marriage on
| religious grounds, are they engaging in hate speech?
|
| What issue is free from being percieved as an attack on
| someone else?
|
| Want to put price controls on rent? You're stampeding on
| property rights. You are marginalizing landlords!
|
| Want to create a company and hire people you want to hire?
| You're discriminating against those you don't want to hire.
|
| So on, and so forth. All contentious issues involve granting
| the advantage to one party over another. That's why they are
| incendiary.
|
| If we don't have free speech, then people will go underground
| and you'll have subterranean political battles with a banal
| surface counterpart. In other words, public speech will
| become completely insincere and everyone will be holding a
| knife behind their back while they wear big gregarious smiles
| and say the nicest things.
|
| This has already happened. Free speech has already been
| effectively eliminated by dumbing down the population. We
| cannot expect any nuanced public debate. All political speech
| is reduced to slogan after slogan, "hope and change," laws
| that have catchy names like "the Patriot act," etc.
|
| It's practically already gone and the underground pressure
| that one would expect in such a dysfunctional political
| climate is already at an eruption point.
|
| I don't know what free speech means when most people are too
| stupid to understand anything above grade school level.
| dendriti wrote:
| "Free speech doesn't exist in this country:
|
| [several hot takes follow]
|
| FREE SPEECH IS OVER!"
|
| Do you not understand how silly you look?
|
| American culture warriors desperately want to be oppressed.
| eweise wrote:
| "people try to use 'free speech' as cover to rally for causes
| that marginalize, harass, and ultimately remove rights from
| others" Isn't that the point of the article? The ACLU used to
| promote free speech for Nazis. Now its political.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| *protect, not promote.
|
| There is a huge difference between allowing and endorsing,
| which is getting conflated in modern thought and discourse.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| how is it any more complicated now than during skokie or
| brandenburg v. ohio? the aclu threaded the needle,
| successfully in my opinion, for decades and it is only in the
| trump era where they seem to have reneged on a maximal
| commitment to preserving civil liberties based on the 'who'
| of the case. i believe that change has been to the detriment
| of everyone.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| >1a issues have gotten a lot more complicated
|
| Nothing ever has, or could be, simpler than the concept of
| free speech and free thought.
| oneoff786 wrote:
| So can I kick people out of my business for saying obscene
| shit?
| ralusek wrote:
| Assuming your business is a private entity, then
| obviously the answer is yes...
| oneoff786 wrote:
| Can I prevent people from publishing content I don't like
| in my magazine?
| [deleted]
| VyperCard wrote:
| Which is just an extremist point of view that will cost you
| your democracy soon.
| [deleted]
| jrochkind1 wrote:
| I've been a member of the ACLU since probably 1996, and have
| always admired the ACLU, so I'm not some johnny-come-lately GenZ
| wanting the ACLU to be something different than a past ACLU I
| don't like.
|
| And I still love the ACLU. I don't think they have lost their way
| or changed their values. I don't agree with every thing the
| national or state ACLU's do (never have), but I think what they
| are doing now is upholding and further the core values they have
| always had, I don't see it as a departure, and in fact I think
| the things they are doing that look like changes are steps to
| _better_ uphold their fundamental core values, I think they are
| steps in the right direction, I 'm very happy with the direction
| they are going.
|
| I'm not even sure I entirely follow what this article is
| complaining about.
| dahdum wrote:
| Trump's election handed them an extra ~$100m a year, but
| advocating for free speech in Charlottesville put that all at
| risk.
|
| Their Director, Anthony Romero, implemented a new ideological and
| political backlash test for those they represent. It was his
| decision. His interviews show he'd much rather be in charge of
| sprawling, well funded partisan organization than a smaller
| crotchety one.
|
| I see the appeal. He's becoming a Democratic power player,
| funding campaigns and helping define the Democratic agenda. Why
| would he ever go back? He has more personal impact than he ever
| could under the old ACLU, can become much wealthier, fraternize
| with celebrities and politicians, and all while being consistent
| with his personal politic views.
|
| I used to support the ACLU and I support progressive causes. Now
| that they are one and the same, I'd rather donate to candidates
| and causes directly instead of letting Romero pick for me.
| api wrote:
| It reminds me a bit of what happened to the National Rifle
| Association honestly. The money is in being hyper-partisan, not
| being objective and standing for some principle. The NRA is now
| basically a far-right Republican lobby group that is only
| incidentally about second amendment rights.
|
| Seems true in media too. Look at what happened to Joe Rogan
| when he got his big deal. His move down-market and toward a
| more partisan position is just going where the money is, I'm
| sure at the behest of his new owners.
|
| Objectivity doesn't pay. Standing for principles doesn't pay.
| Selling out to partisan or corporate agendas pays.
| jerkstate wrote:
| There are gun advocacy groups which are issues-focused and
| compromise far less than the NRA, which is kind of a joke
| among younger gun advocates. Gun Owners of America is one who
| frequently supports legal funds for gun advocacy issues.
| Occasionally, a state gun rights group escalates a case up
| through circuit courts to the supreme court and deserves
| financial support. This past year, the California Rifle &
| Pistol association fought a case around standard-capacity
| magazine bans, and the New York State Rifle & Pistol
| Association fought a case regarding restrictions on carrying
| and transporting firearms. I believe CRPA is a 501(c)3
| organization so donations are tax-deductible. I am sure there
| are others but I would be fine if the ACLU focused on the 1st
| amendment and left gun advocacy to other more focused groups
| (although I would appreciate if those groups also got 501(c)3
| certification)
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| >The NRA is now basically a far-right Republican lobby group
| that is only incidentally about second amendment rights.
|
| As someone who has extensively followed the missteps of the
| NRA under Wayne LaPierre... I don't believe you understand
| what Far-Right is, nor the actual details of the NRA.
|
| Allow me to give you a primer that isn't built off of media
| fear mongering...
|
| NRA is very much Establishment Right. That's part of the
| problem. They wanted to snuggle with McConnell and Graham and
| hated Trump just as much as the afore mentioned do. The NRA
| wants status quo. Don't actually do anything because we can't
| campaign on that. Go to galas, make important calls and
| meetings in DC, have the company buy a house for you.
|
| As both sides have abandoned compromise solutions, the NRA is
| still playing the 2A game as if it was bowling pin matches
| and skeet clubs.
|
| Guess what though? The young people that make up modern gun
| owners have different concerns. The Hearing Protection Act
| and National Reciprocity should have gone through on Trump
| Day 1. But the NRA didn't really care about either. Almost
| every gun owner in the county was pissed off when NRA didn't
| storm the fucking gates when Philando Castile was killed by a
| twitchy cop. That was a fucking home run to prove gun
| ownership isn't about skin color and they did absolutely
| nothing. GOA and SAF took an immediate stand despite many
| members and groups being police affiliated.
|
| GOA and SAF have been building their ranks with young,
| motivated, and politically active members. The NRA Old Guard
| is dying of age, not by bullets real or political, by bloat.
|
| Anyone that is anti-gun should not be celebrating the slow
| dissolve of the NRA. And likewise, if you (seriously!?) think
| the NRA is "Far Right" you really aren't going to like the
| ambitious and motivated direction of the new guard. They'll
| compromise when it makes sense, but real compromise, where
| you give something up for something they want.
| tomschlick wrote:
| SAF and GOA are doing great work.
|
| Side note: For anyone who doesn't know, they are available
| on Amazon Smile as a charity so you can support them with a
| few cents from every purchase you make at no additional
| cost to you.
| daenz wrote:
| >Evil cannot create anything new, they can only corrupt and ruin
| what good forces have invented or made.
|
| -attributed to JRR Tolkien
| megaman821 wrote:
| I was a long-time ACLU supporter until a couple of years when
| they pivoted away from their free-speech mission. Is there any
| organization that carries that mantle now?
|
| The Trump era really broke something in people's brains. Politics
| started invading everywhere at a level much greater than had ever
| existed before. I don't go to work, watch sports, or share
| pictures with the intent to engage in politics.
| janeerie wrote:
| Within the sphere of education, FIRE (https://www.thefire.org/)
| is pursuing this mission.
| mlindner wrote:
| I'd really love an answer to this question myself as I was
| similiarly a moderate supporter of the ACLU. Also I completely
| agree on your thoughts on the Trump era.
| specialp wrote:
| I recall when Trump was elected a huge amount of money went to
| the ACLU and that is when they really took a turn towards who
| was paying them. Recall this was the organization that would
| represent white supremacists as an absolutist for free speech.
|
| Conservatives have historically had problems with free speech
| when it came to things they view as contrary to "family
| values", and later on with Trump branding the press as "The
| enemy of the people". But in the last 5-10 years liberals have
| as well had a problem with free speech with things they
| determine is "hate speech".
|
| So now there aren't many people left that support the cause of
| absolute free speech regardless of whether you agree or
| disagree, and we have the ACLU catering more towards liberal
| causes and less on free speech cases.
| brightball wrote:
| EFF seems to be the closest thing these days.
| Jiro wrote:
| The EFF wanted to kick Richard Stallman out of the FSF based
| on fake sexual harassment accusations.
| https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/03/statement-re-
| election-...
| TotempaaltJ wrote:
| How do you know they're fake? If you were to be convinced
| they were real, would you then share the EFF's opinion, or
| do you believe Stallman shouldn't be judged on this?
| puffoflogic wrote:
| > Is there any organization that carries that mantle now?
|
| It depends on whether you're willing to support an organization
| which also cares about other rights too. If you can stomach the
| defense of property rights, ij.org and pacificlegal.org both
| defend free speech rights alongside other rights.
| megaman821 wrote:
| Those are good suggestions, thanks.
| colpabar wrote:
| > The Trump era really broke something in people's brains.
|
| The mainstream media did a great job of outraging liberals
| because whenever trump said _anything_ even remotely
| controversial, it was covered nonstop until he said the next
| thing. I think a lot of people ended up being outraged for 5
| straight years, and came to the conclusion that the idea of
| free speech is "a danger to our democracy".
| brightball wrote:
| There were times when that was going on that I honestly
| wondered whether Trump was a genius. I can't thing of
| anything he did from a legislative perspective that was
| really problematic but he exerted almost total control of the
| media cycle 140 characters at a time.
| jandrese wrote:
| Huge tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy without cutting
| services would be the first thing I'd ding his
| administration on.
|
| Not stopping the family separation at the southern border.
|
| Sending bad medical advice and politicizing response to a
| national healthcare crisis with COVID-19.
|
| Abandoning Puerto Rico after a devastating Hurricane.
|
| Not offering a replacement for Obamacare as promised,
| instead only gutting the process to make it more expensive
| for people who still try to get insurance. Especially for
| not implementing a single payer healthcare system like the
| entire rest of the civilized world uses to offer much more
| efficient healthcare to the populace.
|
| Not fixing the Social Security deficit.
|
| Engaging in a trade war with China without an apparent exit
| strategy.
| brightball wrote:
| > Huge tax cuts for the ultra-wealthy without cutting
| services would be the first thing I'd ding his
| administration on.
|
| Agreed. The lack of accompanying service cuts really kept
| this from being as effective as it could have been.
|
| > Abandoning Puerto Rico after a devastating Hurricane.
|
| Yea, that was really bad.
|
| > Engaging in a trade war with China without an apparent
| exit strategy.
|
| I was actually pretty happy with how that went. A lot of
| progress was made, including stopping China from being
| able to abuse our own postal service to undercut local
| vendors on shipping. Before Covid hit, I was most looking
| forward to seeing continued progress there.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18246130
|
| > Sending bad medical advice and politicizing response to
| a national healthcare crisis with COVID-19.
|
| I'm not going to go deep into this, but suffice it to say
| it was an election year and everything was politicized by
| everyone.
|
| Everything below here is just maintaining the status quo.
| I wouldn't call any of these Trump specific.
|
| > Not stopping the family separation at the southern
| border.
|
| This is admittedly horrifying, however, the amount of
| people coming over the border without any identification
| combined with the potential for trafficking makes it a
| complicated problem to solve. Not solving it was also
| just maintaining the status quo.
|
| > Not offering a replacement for Obamacare as promised,
| instead only gutting the process to make it more
| expensive for people who still try to get insurance.
| Especially for not implementing a single payer healthcare
| system like the entire rest of the civilized world uses
| to offer much more efficient healthcare to the populace.
|
| Agreed and disappointing. It's also an incredibly hard
| problem to solve without turning the entire country
| upside down. Dangling the carrot is easier (for both
| parties).
|
| > Not fixing the Social Security deficit.
|
| Been a problem for years that neither party is willing to
| make the hard decisions to correct.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| While 2016-2020 did seem particularly crazy in how every
| little thing got outrage coverage, I remember similar things
| from Obama's presidency. Things like the week long outrage
| over him asking for dijon mustard on his burger. I also felt
| a lot of parallels between Trump and his tax returns / ties
| with Russia and Obama with his citizenship
| conspiracies/outrage.
|
| I don't know if recency bias plays into the Trump stuff
| feeling way more covered, or if it actually was, but I'm not
| _sure_ media did particularly more this time around compared
| to last. Maybe it was just who the target audience for
| outrage was this time, instead of the amount of coverage.
|
| Not really sure of my point, but food for thought to the
| lurkers I guess.
| kolbe wrote:
| This is just because you didn't watch Fox. Fox and Limbaugh
| had been milking the idea that news should be about
| invoking outrage and gaslighting for a very long time.
| MSNBC copied the model starting about 2010, and then every
| single news outlet realized it was the best business model
| by the time Trump came into office.
|
| I don't think there's a particular left/right/whatever bent
| to running this business model. It's just that there isn't
| a lot of news that engages people in this world, so you
| cannot sustain a 24/7 media empire unless you wrap them up
| in a conspiracy or create a false narrative that there's
| some evil group that their news is fighting against with
| the truth. Then, all of a sudden, some random person's
| Tweet about mixed sex bathrooms becomes an hour's worth of
| news to engage people with.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| While Fox does have large market share it was the only
| major media company that was constantly critical of Obama.
| When it comes to Trump NBC, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, and
| whoever else were all critical of Trump. It felt far more
| widespread when it came to Trump.
| moduspol wrote:
| I don't think anything during the Obama years comes
| remotely close to the 2+ years of wall-to-wall coverage of
| Russian collusion that failed to materialize... and that's
| just the most obvious case.
| ss108 wrote:
| Except it did materialize. There were indictments that
| arose from that investigation, and we know they were
| interested in acquiring Russian "dirt" on Clinton. If you
| expected something more dramatic or obvious, that's
| uninformed and naive.
| [deleted]
| colpabar wrote:
| I don't disagree that our media sucks and chooses to cover
| things that I don't think are important.
|
| I have a very clear memory of a fox news headline
| disparaging obama for taking his jacket off in the white
| house, because apparently that was against the custom or
| whatever. And I thought, who cares, and it was then I knew
| that I shouldn't take fox seriously. But then, when trump
| was elected, I saw cnn spend a whole day talking about how
| trump got two scoops of ice cream and everyone else only
| got one, and had the same realization.
|
| But I have to disagree with the idea that these stories
| were spread to the same degree. Go on twitter, go on
| facebook, go on snapchat - name a platform, and that
| platform will promote ideas against a republican
| _significantly_ more than stories against a democrat. And
| you can argue that "that's just the algorithm" or
| whatever, but it is what it is, which is biased.
| xboxnolifes wrote:
| > Go on twitter, go on facebook, go on snapchat - name a
| platform, and that platform will promote ideas against a
| republican significantly more than stories against a
| democrat.
|
| I had always rationalized this with the thought that
| these platforms had larger Democrat populations than
| Republican, which explains the broadcast bias. Maybe that
| is an incorrect assumption.
| chaosharmonic wrote:
| > The mainstream media did a great job of outraging liberals
| because whenever trump said anything even remotely
| controversial, it was covered nonstop until he said the next
| thing.
|
| To be fair, I bet you could measure the average interval of
| those events in hours.
| colpabar wrote:
| Yeah sure, but so what? Was him getting two scoops of ice
| cream really worth covering? Something I like to ask people
| is, how did any of it actually effect your life? The _only_
| noticeable change in my life from his presidency was that I
| paid less in taxes.
|
| I'm just tired of pretending any of it means anything
| anymore. Both parties won't fix the roads, both parties
| won't give us healthcare, both parties are pro-war. Why
| should anyone care who the president is?
| aphexairlines wrote:
| > in my life
|
| Lucky you?
| colpabar wrote:
| Were you affected in any way other than being upset?
| aphexairlines wrote:
| Yes. Even this week, we have the news that his supreme
| court nominees are voting to strike down abortion
| protections, and I have female friends and family in
| states with trigger laws.
| ss108 wrote:
| What is this ice cream strawman? Dude popped off with
| lies and idiotic remarks routinely, was proud of an
| inhumane immigration policy, wanted to yank people's
| healthcare, cozied up to dictators, etc. It's disgusting
| how much some people defend him.
| hibikir wrote:
| This is a pretty strange week to say that: The president
| nominates supreme court judges, and the rulings of those
| judges can make a big difference in your life: For
| instance, whether there's a right to abortion in the US
| or not.
|
| Whether you are in favor or against, it's easy to argue
| that a whole lot of people care about that issue, and not
| only in purely theoretical grounds.
|
| And that's just the topic of the week: A justice is, on
| average, going to be making rulings for about 30 years,
| and is probably going to be able to retire strategically,
| to be replaced by a like-minded judge. So even if it's
| just due to the power of electing supreme court justices,
| presidents matter.
|
| So I don't think it's hard to argue that, because of
| Trump's presidency, we'll have a very conservative
| supreme court for, very likely, our entire lifetimes,
| while if Clinton had won, we'd instead have a liberal
| majority in the court for at least another 20 years.
|
| Even without the abortion decision, the court will make a
| big practical difference to a lot of people. I think it's
| fair to expect wide sweeping decisions that would never
| have happened without Trump being able to build a 6-3
| court.
| fernandotakai wrote:
| > This is a pretty strange week to say that: The
| president nominates supreme court judges, and the rulings
| of those judges can make a big difference in your life:
| For instance, whether there's a right to abortion in the
| US or not.
|
| i'm sorry, but what the supreme court DRAFT said was:
| "there's no constitutional right to abortion. also this
| should've been decided by representatives of the people".
|
| i'm not sure why that's a bad thing -- supreme court
| justices should not legislate and, if abortion is such an
| important thing for one side of the isle, they should
| fight, tooth and nail, to get laws (actual laws, not
| flimsy decisions by non-elected officials) passed.
|
| hell, even RBG criticized roe v wade --
| https://www.law.uchicago.edu/news/justice-ruth-bader-
| ginsbur...
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| I'm thankful the U.S. army did not capitulate to Trump's
| demands to go to war with Iran, Venezuela.
|
| edit: I'm getting downvoted, so here's a source:
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
| politic...
|
| We're in a much better place today because of heroes in
| our military
| colpabar wrote:
| Personally, it's a huge red flag when anyone in any sort
| of leadership position in the american military is
| _against_ any kind of conflict, because they are usually
| all for it. I also can 't help but wonder how this would
| be reported if these leaders did this to obama. I really
| wish they did!
| zaroth wrote:
| This is nonsensical. What the article is describing is
| political trash talk, with absolutely nothing to back it
| up. Typical article published during that time period,
| and emblematic of the media circus that surrounded Trump.
| [deleted]
| djmips wrote:
| You are getting downvoted but I wonder why. It seems quite
| plausible what you are suggesting.
| colpabar wrote:
| I appreciate the sentiment, but I humbly ask that you don't
| comment about votes. It's against the guidelines, and imo
| it's just a waste of an indentation level. But the worst
| part is that you cannot know what the number of votes will
| be in the future, so your comment is only relevant the
| exact moment you post it.
| djmips wrote:
| Fine. I'll just say. "Some may not like your opinion" -
| also it's a bit rude to suggest someone's thoughts are
| not 'worth an indentation level' mr. HN elite.
| [deleted]
| jandrese wrote:
| > whenever trump said anything even remotely controversial,
| it was covered nonstop until he said the next thing.
|
| Which was typically the next day. Trying to follow the Trump
| White House was exhausting.
|
| Trump knew how to play the media like a fiddle. Say something
| outrageous, get loads of coverage, before anybody has time to
| really think about it or offer rebuttals he says something
| else outrageous and the first statement is instantly old news
| and forgotten.
|
| News organizations made huge profits while Trump was in
| office, and their ratings have slipped considerably since
| electing President Biden and especially since Trump was
| kicked off of Twitter.
| dotnet00 wrote:
| Makes me really miss the days when the biggest outrage in
| media was which flavor of ice cream Obama liked. It felt like
| people were a lot more open to just laughing at things back
| then. Now so much political discourse is about calling the
| opposition evil in some way.
|
| Could also just be the fact that I was a young teen then with
| little care for the world beyond school and friends.
| stjohnswarts wrote:
| It has but I keep donating because they do some good work as
| well. I'm also a member of EFF, NRA, Planned Parenthood, and TFTP
| and contribute semi-annualy to the causes. You'll never agree
| with everyone's full point of view, but there are groups fighting
| for liberty still.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Glad someone else noticed this. The ACLU has worked against
| several causes (such as freedom of the press and free speech)
| that it would have supported once upon a time. The question is
| why. Possibilities I can think of are: (A) it's become controlled
| opposition, the leaders are secretly libertarians (unlikely) (B)
| it's become bloated with bureaucrats who just want to collect a
| paycheck and are guided by trails of money (meh) (C) It's become
| bloated with trend-chasers who are passionate about the latest
| cause de jure, and don't think about or care about other causes
| (D) the organization is holding on for dear life, donations are
| down, and they can't afford to be picky with what causes they
| support, whatever keeps the justice ship afloat
| cameldrv wrote:
| IMO the answer as to why is that Ira Glasser was replaced by
| Anthony Romero as executive director in 2001, and Romero
| substantially reoriented the organization.
| lliamander wrote:
| > it's become controlled opposition, the leaders are secretly
| libertarians (unlikely)
|
| Hold up. Are you suggesting that libertarians are against free
| speech and freedom of the press?
| lukas099 wrote:
| Right, hasn't the ACLU always been a libertarian
| organization?
| briandear wrote:
| Not when it comes to the second amendment. They cherry-pick
| the Bill of Rights to suit their donors' politics. They
| also seem to ignore the 10th as well.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Not particularly. For example their policy document "A Pro-
| Liberty Case for Gun Restrictions" is very much the
| opposite of the libertarian take on the issue. Their
| support of net neutrality laws & regulations is also un-
| Libertarian, although maybe you could make the argument
| that net neutrality is only necessary because ISPs don't
| operate in a true free market.
| lukas099 wrote:
| I can see that being true for those particular issues,
| but in general, don't they support strong Constitutional
| protections for individuals?
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| I suppose if you critically examine the definition of
| Liberty / Libertarian you could say they are such an
| organization. You could also get creative with definitions
| and claim that because they want to maintain and preserve
| constitutional rights they are actually a 'conservative'
| institution.
|
| However in general perception they are firmly "on the left"
| politically and socially whereas Libertarians are perceived
| as "on the right" in America. Therefore I don't think the
| label Libertarian is fitting in this case.
| lukas099 wrote:
| Interesting, thanks. I know that people who identify as
| 'libertarians' in the USA tend to be right-wing, but I
| thought that the definition was much closer to that of
| 'liberal', as in 'favoring the rights of the individual'.
| function_seven wrote:
| No, the phrase "controlled opposition" implies that they're
| _for_ these ideals, and take up losing cases against them as
| a means of advancing them.
|
| It's not very plausible, but it's a theory :)
|
| For example, if I--a dyed-in-the-wool free speech advocate--
| bring a weak case against someone who wrote something
| unpopular, I can control the opposition within the case and
| ensure that I lose (and therefore my ideals are upheld).
|
| Again, not very plausible with respect to the ACLU's drift,
| but that's what parent seems to be suggesting as one of the
| possibilities.
| benmmurphy wrote:
| That's some extreme 4D chess. An organization originally
| founded to support free speech is infiltrated by people who
| support free speech who start promoting anti-free speech
| ideals or cases in order to weak man the anti-free speech
| argument.
| lliamander wrote:
| That makes sense.
| chromaton wrote:
| Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy suggests something like B.
| drpgq wrote:
| There's also one of Robert Conquest's laws:
|
| Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later
| becomes left-wing.
| clairity wrote:
| my impression is that some chapters/local offices are more
| focused on traditional civil liberties than others. but fashion
| is oh-so-hard to resist, especially in places like CA or TX
| that see themselves as being at the forefront of culture.
|
| side note: "de jure" (by law) should be "du jour" (of the day).
| i just used this phrase in another post, a funny little coinky-
| dink (coincidence).
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| The principles on which the organization was founded are not
| (at least not to the same degree) the principles of the people
| who now comprise it. Leaving aside why this is the case, I
| think it is clear that the ACLU trades on a reputation that
| they no longer entirely deserve.
| dehrmann wrote:
| Censorship has become popular on both sides of the aisle as of
| late. The obvious difference is they disagree about what should
| be censored.
| moduspol wrote:
| Well, and they also disagree on _where_ the censorship should
| occur.
|
| One side is trying to prevent kindergarteners from having
| teachers discuss gender and sexual identity issues with them.
| The other is openly claiming free speech is problematic on
| widely available public discussion platforms, with thought
| leaders claiming that strict moderation of these platforms is
| necessary to preserve democracy.
|
| But yes, arguably both sides are supporting some degree of
| censorship.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| I have trouble agreeing that government workers should be
| talking to kindergartens about sexual topics they can not
| process.
|
| I know the idea that this is censorship might float with
| some, but I just can't be fussed to stand for something I
| wouldn't want for my children.
|
| I don't think this is censorship, I think this is defining
| what is appropriate for interactions with children.
| Ekaros wrote:
| Also if we allow teachers to teach about any topics due
| to freedom of speech. Is that necessarily a good thing or
| even something we want? This could lead very varying
| things being taught and probably some that one side
| agrees and some that other side agrees with...
|
| I think age appropriate centrally planned general plan
| what should be taught is entirely reasonable. Anything
| else just leaves to mess and unevenness.
| juve1996 wrote:
| Of course - when everything is made into this "battle for
| America", everything matters, censorship becomes "justified"
| and the further the division grows.
| Loughla wrote:
| I do genuinely wonder what it is in humans that makes them
| seem to inherently want a 'strong' (read: a flavor of fascist
| but with views that agree with mine personally) leader.
| baggy_trough wrote:
| E) The organization has become dominated by young progressives
| that no longer believe in core civil liberties.
| benmmurphy wrote:
| This is just Conquest's second law in action:
|
| 'Any organization not explicitly right-wing sooner or later
| becomes left-wing.'
| notacoward wrote:
| Are you sure it's not just that they _seem_ left-wing as the
| actual right wing continues to move further right?
| brightball wrote:
| I live in the southeast and talk to a lot of right wing
| people. Nothing has really changed in my lifetime as far as
| right wing view points go. At least to the degree that I
| can't find anyone around me who supports the crazier stuff
| I see online.
| briandear wrote:
| What does "further right" mean? Positions the left would
| have never taken 10 years ago are now commonplace. The idea
| that a Supreme Court nominee is too afraid to even define
| what a woman is (due to her lack of biology credentials
| apparently) -- that would have been laughable 10 years ago.
| The Democrat position on abortion, during the Clinton admin
| was "safe, legal, rare." Now it's "abortion for any reason
| at any stage of pregnancy, even up to the moment of birth."
| That's an extreme position. And on illegal immigration --
| Barbara Jordan's position is identical to the position
| republicans have maintained for decades.
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3qjdZUx7fUw
| notacoward wrote:
| So a world without Roe v Wade (for example) with the
| threat of Dred Scott style extradition for those who
| cross state borders, isn't a further-right position than
| when Roe was still in place? Immigration
| policies/attitudes aren't further right than in the days
| when "bring me your tired" meant something? You don't
| remember the days when finance and media and airlines
| were more tightly regulated? When unions were stronger?
| Do you really need me to cite the many studies from
| actual political scientists and sociologists showing the
| rightward trend, vs. your cherry picked anecdata? I
| thought this was all well known, but perhaps it's not so
| obvious behind HN's own rightward shift.
| actusual wrote:
| > Progressive causes are near and dear to my heart. I am a
| feminist and staunch Democrat. As a federal public defender
| turned law professor, I have spent my career trying to make
| change in a criminal legal system that is riven with racism and
| fundamentally unfair to those without status and financial
| resources. Yet, as someone who understands firsthand that the
| fundamental rights to free speech and due process exist only as
| long as competent lawyers are willing to vigorously defend
| extreme positions and people, I view the ACLU's hard-left turn
| with alarm. It smacks of intolerance and choosing sides,
| precisely what a civil-liberties organization designed to defend
| the Bill of Rights is meant to oppose.
|
| What an incredibly level headed take. It's so level headed that
| it seems fake when projected onto the landscape of modern
| political discourse.
| rayiner wrote:
| Lara Bazelon is a rigorous thinker and a staunch believer in
| procedural justice. This leads to heterodox takes like, for
| example, supporting Betsy DeVoss's efforts to roll back Obama's
| Title IX reforms:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/opinion/-title-ix-
| devos-d.... (As a conservative, I disagree with more her than I
| agree with her, ironically including with respect to Title IX,
| where I agree with Obama for conservative reasons.)
| darkerside wrote:
| I remember there being a ton of conversation about these
| issues. What happened to these reforms in particular?
| rayiner wrote:
| These are being promulgated by executive actions--the
| Department of Education issuing guidance using its
| authority over federal educational funding as the hook for
| enforcement. Thus they have been flipping back-and-forth
| between administrations. The Obama-era guidance was
| significantly rolled back by Trump, to include things like
| not allowing evidence to be admitted from a witness not
| subject to cross examination. Biden then undid certain
| parts of the Trump rule, specifically getting rid of the
| cross-examination requirement: https://www.browndailyherald
| .com/article/2022/03/activists-e...
| monksy wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with you that this is a levelheaded take.
| The individual identified with 2 different groups and defers
| the individual's personal beliefs. It's hard to see if the
| reason why he/she believes in these things as a personal stance
| or to maintain membership within those groups.
|
| Associating with groups, esp like these, means alignment to the
| groups priorities. I see this tribalism as part of what has
| really destroyed the modern political landscape.
| RC_ITR wrote:
| The new definition of levelheaded is "straw man assertion I
| don't back up with facts" then "somber toned analysis of
| straw man impacts"
|
| The internet revealed that facts are real, but
| interpretations are extremely up for grabs. I mean is is
| really a "hard left turn" to stop defending the KKK or is the
| author just living in a world where people don't grasp how
| truly outside of contemporary society that the KKK operates
| in?
| [deleted]
| javajosh wrote:
| _> It's so level headed that it seems fake when projected onto
| the landscape of modern political discourse._
|
| Yes, and we need more of this sort of thinking, from everyone
| capable of it. I believe we have to stop thinking that "keeping
| your head down" is a solution. It is not. We must challenge
| unfairness itself, even if, especially if it yields an outcome
| we would prefer. This means principle over loyalty, and it
| won't make you popular but it may save our civilization.
| throw_nbvc1234 wrote:
| Personally I'd like to get back to a world where the fate of
| civilization is not the responsibility of every individual to
| worry about on a daily basis. That same mindset is underneath
| all the polarization as well; are you really a good (or loyal
| or principled) person if you're not actively fighting for
| causes X, Y and Z? Could be correlation instead of causation
| though.
| user982 wrote:
| When the ACLU rewrote a Ruth Bader Ginsburg quote ( _" The
| decision whether or not to bear a child is central to a
| [person's] life, to [their] well-being and dignity..."_[1]), all
| I could think of was The Onion ( _" I've always believed that one
| [homosexual] really can make a difference."_[2]).
|
| [1] https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1439259891064004610 [2]
| https://www.theonion.com/area-homosexual-saves-four-from-fir...
| puffoflogic wrote:
| RBG is being misquoted and misremembered a lot again in the
| past week or so. She publicly stated on many occasions that she
| thought Roe vs Wade was bad law. Now her name is being invoked
| to defend it.
| colpabar wrote:
| >The heart of Depp's claim is that Heard ruined his acting career
| when she published a 2018 op-ed in The Washington Post describing
| herself as "a public figure representing domestic abuse"--a
| thinly veiled reference to much-publicized accusations of assault
| she made against Depp in court filings toward the end of their
| short-lived marriage. But Heard hadn't pitched the idea to the
| Post--the ACLU had. Terence Dougherty, the organization's general
| counsel, testified via video deposition that the ACLU had
| spearheaded the effort and served as Heard's ghostwriter in
| exchange for her promise to donate $3.5 million to the
| organization. The promised donation also bought Heard the title
| of ACLU "ambassador on women's rights with a focus on gender-
| based violence." When Heard failed to pay up, Doughtery said, the
| ACLU collected $100,000 from Depp himself, and another $500,000
| from a fund connected to Elon Musk, whom Heard dated after the
| divorce.
|
| I have not been paying much attention to this case (I actually
| thought it was just a messy divorce case), but man, fuck the
| ACLU. How is anyone supposed to take any of this seriously
| anymore? She didn't even write the piece herself? How was the
| ACLU able to "collect" money from both Johnny Depp and Elon
| Musk??
|
| What a disgrace the ACLU has become, and unfortunately I think
| most people still see them as the freedom-fighters they used to
| be.
| sumnuyungi wrote:
| The article's phrasing is a mischaracterization: Depp and Musk
| made donations on behalf of Heard, the ACLU didn't go after
| them to "collect".
| kodah wrote:
| > When Heard failed to pay up, Doughtery said, the ACLU
| collected $100,000 from Depp himself, and another $500,000
| from a fund connected to Elon Musk, whom Heard dated after
| the divorce.
|
| It doesn't really specify what the ACLU said or did to get
| that money. I'm curious what those methods were and if Depp
| (or Musk) were aware of the ACLU's involvement or the pay to
| play relationship between Heard and the ACLU.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| In Depp's case, he paid the first $100,000 of the $7M
| divorce settlement directly to the ACLU -- and she flipped
| out and demanded the money go to her, rather than directly
| to the charities she pledged it to: the ACLU and a
| children's hospital.
|
| Heard never donated the balance of her divorce settlement
| she publicly pledged.
| colpabar wrote:
| Ah, okay, thanks for the clarification! That actually makes
| it kind of funny. I guess there's the possibility of some
| kind of blackmail, but I don't think musk would let himself
| be blackmailed quietly.
|
| But still, it doesn't seem like the ACLU should be involved
| in this.
| zmgsabst wrote:
| The ACLU was trying to cash in on #metoo (which was timely,
| when this was published) -- and published Heard's
| defamation of Depp, apparently ignoring the numerous flags
| everyone else could see that Heard was the one abusing
| Depp.
|
| But during the height of #metoo, we weren't "allowed" to
| ask those questions because we needed to "believe all
| women".
|
| Institutional misandry strikes again.
| tallytarik wrote:
| > Heard was the one abusing Depp
|
| This seems to imply that Depp did not abuse Heard, which
| was not the view of the judge in the UK defamation trial
| (he ruled that 12 out of 14 incidents of abuse
| perpetrated by Depp had been proven to a civil standard).
|
| It looks like Heard _also_ abused Depp on at least a few
| occasions. But there seems to be this online sentiment at
| the moment that Heard is a compulsive liar and that she
| did not suffer abuse _at all_. There seems to be clear
| public evidence to the contrary.
| wdb wrote:
| It's a mess. Looks like that Miss Heard promised $3.5m to
| ACLU and $3.5 to a children hospital but didn't pay anything
| to the hospital and only donated like $350k herself to the
| ACLU. It's pretty wild when Miss Heard told on public
| television that she donated the full $7m to both parties (in
| 2018). You wonder what else she is lying about.
| all2well wrote:
| Time to pull out the dril tweet: "theres actually zero difference
| between good & bad things"
| rajin444 wrote:
| That tweet is almost as bad as people who bring up the paradox
| of tolerance.
|
| Morals have always and will always be relative to who's alive
| at the time. Dril is just speaking power to truth, since their
| morals are winning for now.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| The ACLU is not above criticism. Is there something in
| particular you object to in this article?
| all2well wrote:
| I take issue with calling the desire to do violence against
| people like me an "ideological difference"
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| As a counterpoint, accusations of "violence" get thrown
| around with little restraint. "Silence is Violence" but
| I've also found that disagreements can equate to "denying
| my right to exist".
| Karrot_Kream wrote:
| That was the point of Ira Glasser's stance. Him and other
| ACLU members defended the right of Neo-Nazis to march in
| Skokie, Illinois. Glasser himself and many of the other
| attorneys on the case were Jewish. They were protecting the
| rights of people demonstrating to advocate for doing
| violence against people like them.
|
| Viewpoints like this are mostly gone these days in the US.
| Liberalism has become unpopular on the Left (and it's
| always been just a suggestion on the Right in my
| experience).
| all2well wrote:
| Most liberal countries have restrictions on outright hate
| speech. It's definitely possible to be a liberal and also
| oppose the right of Nazis to advocate for mass genocide.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| The word "liberal" has been mangled to the point where it
| is essentially meaningless. As far as I'm concerned,
| anyone who believes the government should have the power
| to regulate the content of your speech, at the point of a
| gun, is in no way "liberal".
| [deleted]
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Free Speech isn't a "liberal" or a "conservative" value,
| it's an American value.
|
| The reason "hate speech" exists in European countries is
| because they have unresolved baggage from WWII, and
| rather than confront the problem, they decided to put a
| boot down and curtail civil liberties instead. None of
| that is relevant to the USA or has any bearing on our
| politics.
| plandis wrote:
| Who defines hate speech? Do you need agreement from 100%
| of citizens or can a few politicians decide what a
| country can and cannot say legally before running afoul
| of hate speech laws?
| psyc wrote:
| Holding a desire to do violence is even more protected than
| saying it out loud or writing it down, which are also
| generally protected if they aren't imminent incitement.
|
| Also, by now I've seen so many breathless statements by
| leftists who are _literally shaking rn_ that so-and-so
| "denies my _right to exist_ " and " _wants me dead_ " that
| it doesn't even look like anything to me anymore. It's just
| a slogan. Letters of the alphabet strung together.
| aeturnum wrote:
| I totally agree that the ACLU is getting into things that seem
| silly, but it seems equally silly to claim they are 'losing their
| way' based on that.
|
| This article complains the ACLU is not taking right-wing speech
| cases but admits they still do take cases and lists no examples
| where they refused. It cites the ACLU reacting to the protest
| where a protester was killed by nazis as anti-speech, but the
| ACLU was not saying they are against legal speech! They
| reflected, correctly, that backing groups that seek to silence
| (and kill) others is not straightforward. Considering the number
| of people in here who are decrying a "movement against freedom of
| speech" I would think people would support that policy!
|
| If the article is to be believed and the ACLU has gotten a lot
| more money in recent years - wouldn't it make sense that they get
| into new areas?
|
| Should the ACLU have more speech lawyers? Maybe! Are there cases
| they couldn't take? I would love to see some examples.
|
| Should the ACLU stay out of politics? It's worth debating and I'm
| glad the article brings it up - but given the anti-democratic
| (and anti-individual rights) policy goals of the republican party
| I understand the approach. The article doesn't even ask what we
| do when one party is against proportional representation!
|
| In general I just don't feel like this is actually responding to
| the ACLU's positions. She accuses the organization of hypocrisy
| around Title IX because they criticized changes but then later
| said they supported some updates - but of course it is perfectly
| coherent to criticize overall changes AND support parts of them.
| Here is their statement:
|
| > _We filed comments on Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' Title IX
| rule that supported fair process requirements for live hearings,
| cross-examination, access to all the evidence, and delays in
| proceedings if the student accused of wrongdoing also faced a
| student criminal investigation, even as we criticized the rule
| for reducing the obligations of schools to respond to reports of
| sexual harassment._
|
| Like seriously, I encourage everyone to check the case selection
| guidelines linked in the article[1]. Here are the things that
| might lead them to not take an otherwise suitable case: the group
| seeks to engage in violence, the group seeks to carry weapons, if
| the speech would lead to direct harm, if the ACLU support would
| appear to damage the orgs' overall mission. These aren't even
| vetos. They're areas of concern, and they seem pretty reasonable
| - especially considering this article criticized the ACLU for
| getting involved with Amber Heard because she sees their support
| for Heard as damaging to the ACLUs' mission! Which is exactly
| their concern.
|
| [1]
| https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/aclu...
| pfkurtz wrote:
| Refuse to engage with any content that would make me more aware
| of Depp/Heard.
| cronix wrote:
| Here is the testimony of the ACLU for this trial, if you're
| curious about it. I watched it live and was beside myself. There
| are a lot more shenanigans than listed in the article. It's
| important to listen to the actual words spoken and changes in
| voice, see the facial expressions, watch the dancing around the
| questions, hear the contradictions.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRkLmKJCKbw
| colpabar wrote:
| It really sucks that our entire legal system is completely
| ineffective if someone is good enough at lying.
| lostcolony wrote:
| And doesn't keep/already destroyed records, per Jan 6th
| investigation.
| fmajid wrote:
| Which is pretty much the job definition of an actor...
| sumnuyungi wrote:
| You can impeach someone and/or offer up other witnesses to
| chip away at a liar's credibility. "Good enough" doesn't come
| close to describing the level of deception necessary to
| render our entire legal system completely ineffective.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| The legal system fails in cases such as
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30838149, with
| motivated convincing liars and/or corruption. Is there a
| better alternative?
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Just look at the 'good faith' allowances granted when
| government officials violate the legal system's own laws and
| requirements. Not only is it ineffective if someone is good
| at lying, it just voids it's own laws and requirements if the
| liar is a government official because 'good faith'.
| qart wrote:
| The video is about the length of a feature film. Any particular
| timestamps that you might want viewers to pay attention to?
| WalterBright wrote:
| The right to free speech is the lynchpin that holds together all
| the other rights. Throwing that under the bus - the rest will
| soon follow.
| pfortuny wrote:
| "Terence Dougherty, the organization's general counsel, testified
| via video deposition that the ACLU had spearheaded the effort and
| served as Heard's ghostwriter in exchange for her promise to
| donate $3.5 million to the organization."
|
| Sorry but a donation is either free (donare: give as a gift) or
| it is no such thing. What a travesty.
| [deleted]
| kolbe wrote:
| Also an interesting way in which the rich avoid taxes. If she
| had paid for the writing, it would have been taxed as a
| service, but instead there was a wink/nod service then
| donation.
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| In India there is something called "donation fee". It is paid
| in exchange for admission to a university (as opposed to
| admission by merit for free). It's pretty ironic
|
| https://www.careers360.com/question-what-is-donation-feeand-...
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| Thats not how donations work in the New Age / Arts community.
| If you go to a "free" yoga class, they "suggest" a "donation"
| of $10.
|
| You see, they're suggesting because being explicit about the
| cost puts a ceiling on how much they could receive while using
| shaming as the tactic for the price floor. Being explicit also
| makes them come across as capitalists, and capitalists are
| evil.
|
| Calling it a donation makes it a favor. They're doing you a
| huge favor .. a priceless service. Won't you donate a little
| bit of your money to support the greater "mission"?
| notpachet wrote:
| It's not as if they conjured this approach out of whole
| cloth. Religions have functioned like this for millennia.
| rmason wrote:
| The ACLU is a sad case. When I was growing up they were a
| bipartisan organization that were fierce advocates for free
| speech. Now it seems they only defend the speech of those on the
| Left side of the aisle.
|
| Here's a critique of those currently running the ACLU by their
| legendary former leader Ira Glasser (edited):
|
| https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10458777/Former-ACL...
| [deleted]
| Gordonjcp wrote:
| polski-g wrote:
| This sort of comment belongs on Tumblr, not HN
| ss108 wrote:
| tiahura wrote:
| ss108 - You're a lawyer? How embarrassing.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Can't it simply be a bad tabloid that leans heavily
| conservative, rather than a cartoon villain for children?
| Calling it a Nazi paper is inarticulate and condescending to
| your audience.
| everly wrote:
| Not to be a pedant, but you're apparently referring to Ira
| Glasser (Ira Glass being the mild-mannered host of This
| American Life).
| Jgrubb wrote:
| The day that pedantry becomes an offense on this board will
| be a sad day indeed.
| ss108 wrote:
| If his comment initially said "Ira Glass", it would not be
| pedantic to point that out. Nontrivial error given that there
| is a famous Ira Glass lol
| [deleted]
| defgeneric wrote:
| See also the 2020 documentary _Mighty Ira_ :
| https://www.mightyira.com/
| [deleted]
| unityByFreedom wrote:
| Are there any reputable firms or organizations who _do_ stand for
| speech rights?
| a_shovel wrote:
| The debacle with the Depp/Heard case is really concerning, I'll
| say that right up front. That whole event is a good argument for
| the article's point. But many of the other criticisms are the
| same ones that didn't convince me the first few times I saw them.
|
| The author says that the ACLU can't be beholden to a political
| ideology, but that's an obvious contradiction. Support for civil
| liberties is an inherently political position. If a political
| party adopts policies that limit civil liberty, then defending CL
| becomes a partisan issue as well. If one candidate in a race for
| office is in favor of CL and the other is opposed, which one
| could easily argue for in the case of the Abrams Vs. Kemp race,
| [0] then it is entirely appropriate for a CL organization to
| support one candidate over the other. To claim that the ACLU
| ought to be, that it _could_ be, apolitical, is to categorically
| refuse to prepare for or fight against the most powerful attacks
| on civil liberties.
|
| In general, I've come to value neutrality and apoliticality less
| and less. What's "political" and what's not is loosely defined
| and socially constructed, and I suspect it's occasionally
| deliberately constructed and redefined by the media to shut down
| certain discussions or criticisms as "inappropriate". Neutrality
| is likewise poorly defined, and it's often just a form of
| cowardice from media groups unwilling to take an obviously
| correct stance because they're afraid to lose subscriptions from
| people who disagree with the evidence.
|
| Plus, one should note that it's the American Civil Liberties
| Union, not the American Free Speech Union. The author implies
| that it is somehow inappropriate for the ACLU to fight for civil
| liberties other free speech. "Immigrant rights, LGBTQ rights,
| reproductive freedom, and racial justice" as named by the article
| are all as much civil liberties as the right to free speech, and
| thus it is within the organization's mission to champion them.
| Yet the author describes the ACLU as unable "uphold its core
| values" by supporting these causes.
|
| Plus, there's this:
|
| > _But in 2018, following the ACLU's successful litigation to
| obtain a permit for white supremacists to march in
| Charlottesville, Virginia, which ended in death and disaster, the
| ACLU issued new guidelines._
|
| There's good logic to the idea that an attack on the free speech
| of Nazis could weaken the rights of the rest of us, but an
| organization that regularly defends Nazis (a group of people
| noted for their desire to commit genocide) will eventually have
| something like this happen. It's an area where the cost-benefit
| analysis may well not turn out in its favor.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Kemp#Accusations_of_vote...
| rory wrote:
| > _Nazis (a group of people noted for their desire to commit
| genocide)_
|
| Do Charlottesville-type alt-righters actually advocate
| genocide, though? It seems like their thing is more moaning
| that _they_ are being genocided.
| dolni wrote:
| > In general, I've come to value neutrality and apoliticality
| less and less. What's "political" and what's not is loosely
| defined and socially constructed, and I suspect it's
| occasionally deliberately constructed and redefined by the
| media to shut down certain discussions or criticisms as
| "inappropriate". Neutrality is likewise poorly defined, and
| it's often just a form of cowardice from media groups unwilling
| to take an obviously correct stance because they're afraid to
| lose subscriptions from people who disagree with the evidence.
|
| I take your point about some values potentially running counter
| to a political party's platform. But the piece you have glossed
| over here (and _why_ political neutrality is important) is
| because those values generally aren 't applied consistently
| between political parties.
|
| Claiming to support free speech, only to turn around and demand
| the censorship of someone who says something you don't like is
| a disgusting practice that we should call out and shame. These
| sorts of double standards are quite common in the modern
| political sphere, unfortunately.
| a_shovel wrote:
| I'm referring to neutrality in the sense of not taking a side
| in a disagreement, and I think you're referring to neutrality
| in the sense of having a single, consistent standard applied
| to everyone equally. They're slightly different concepts. We
| should certainly hold everyone to the same standard, but I'm
| what I'm saying is that, for example, a standard isn't unfair
| just because it affects one political group more than
| another; it might be unfair, but it could also be the case
| that the more affected group is just worse.
| Splendor wrote:
| > In 1978, the ACLU succcessfully [sic] defended the right of
| neo-Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, a community populated by
| Holocaust survivors. But in 2018, following the ACLU's successful
| litigation to obtain a permit for white supremacists to march in
| Charlottesville, Virginia, which ended in death and disaster, the
| ACLU issued new guidelines. Citing concerns about "limited
| resources" and "the potential effect on marginalized groups," the
| organization cautioned its lawyers to take special care when
| considering whether to represent groups whose "values are
| contrary to our values."
|
| First off. A professor writes a mere 1,000 word article for a
| major publication and it has typos. Yikes.
|
| Second, the author points to action the ACLU took to defend the
| right of white supremacists to march in Charlottesville in 2018
| and then tries to say they've changed position but doesn't
| demonstrate that with any proof of similar action or inaction --
| just words. IMO actions are more important than words and if the
| ACLU's actions are still in line with the mission you say you
| agree with, this is much ado about nada.
| twofornone wrote:
| >I view the ACLU's hard-left turn with alarm. It smacks of
| intolerance and choosing sides, precisely what a civil-liberties
| organization designed to defend the Bill of Rights is meant to
| oppose.
|
| The ACLU has clearly been infiltrated and coopted by the same
| authoritarian ideologues running amok in almost all of our other
| institutions. Manufactured by degree mills where children take on
| tens of thousands in debt for the privilege of progressive
| indoctrination.
|
| >Progressive causes are near and dear to my heart. I am a
| feminist and staunch Democrat. As a federal public defender
| turned law professor, I have spent my career trying to make
| change in a criminal legal system that is riven with racism and
| fundamentally unfair to those without status and financial
| resources
|
| The author is complicit but in typical progressive fashion
| totally oblivious to her role in the rise of this activist class.
| She made her bed and now we all get to lay in it, surrounded by
| irrational diversity propaganda while forced to keep quiet in the
| face of genuine systemic racism under implicit threat of
| retaliation.
| cr__ wrote:
| Can you elaborate on this "genuine systemic racism" and on who
| you feel is perpetrating it?
| twofornone wrote:
| Overt discrimination against straight white males? Mandated
| by investors through ESG contingent funding and pushed down
| the chain by C-suite executives who have attended mandatory
| "diversity" reeducation seminars (literal racial/gendered
| propaganda), implemented by (overwhelmingly female) degree
| mill graduates in HR who viciously suppress any dissent
| against this particular systemically sanctioned
| discrimination.
|
| That would fit the bill for systemic racism/sexism and it
| isn't merely alleged like that of D&I proponents.
| rrradical wrote:
| Discrimination against straight white males? Presumably
| everyone would agree straight white males were given huge
| privileges in the long tail history of America. (That's a
| pretty easy reading of history.)
|
| So, if your claim is that they are now discriminated
| against- what was the inflection point where they were
| treated with no net bias?
|
| Perhaps the reason it feels like discrimination is because
| those privileges are eroding?
| twofornone wrote:
| >Presumably everyone would agree straight white males
| were given huge privileges in the long tail history of
| America. (That's a pretty easy reading of history.)
|
| No, that's a biased, agendad reading of history which
| ignores that the vast majority of these unfairly
| privileged white males were competing with other males
| who shared the same privilege. It does not justify
| discrimination against individuals today. It also does
| not demonstrate how a 90% majority benefited from
| workplace discrimination against the minority. Those
| inconvenient details are handwaved away with accusations
| of bigotry.
|
| >So, if your claim is that they are now discriminated
| against- what was the inflection point where they were
| treated with no net bias?
|
| Given the rate with which this cultural shift has
| progressed, there may not have been an obvious inflection
| point. But that's irrelevant to my argument.
|
| In typical fashion you are simultaneously rationalizing
| discriminatory hiring practices (as though historic
| privilege requires modern correction) and denying that
| they are being mandated (as though D&I initiatives do not
| put implicit and explicit pressure against hiring white
| males). And the dishonesty is infuriating.
| native_samples wrote:
| _Perhaps the reason it feels like discrimination is
| because those privileges are eroding?_
|
| It feels like discrimination because it _is_
| discrimination.
|
| Stop being so USA centric anyway. This crap gets exported
| around the world. Even if you accept the evil "corruption
| of blood" type propositions, people who live in countries
| that never had any of the racial history of the USA end
| up suffering from your racist and sexist nonsense.
| dillondoyle wrote:
| tempnow987 wrote:
| "First Amendment protections are disproportionately enjoyed by
| people of power and privilege" - Dennis Parker, ACLU
|
| Police are white supremacist and defunding police big focus
|
| "We need to defund the budgets - It's the only way we're going to
| take power back." - Mr Romero (head of the org).
|
| 400+ lawsuits against trump.
|
| Started trying to stop circulation of books they don't agree
| with:
|
| "Stopping the circulation of this book and these ideas is 100% a
| hill I will die on." -
| https://twitter.com/donovancleckley/status/13274901590765854...
|
| They are a nonpolitical (edited: should be nonpartisan) (required
| by charitable status) group running ads like this:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0aqKS3ihVM
|
| "Stacey Abrams will end dependence on private prisons which will
| save millions" Stacey Abrams did some deal with someone that will
| do X. etc.
|
| On title IX issues, where you had some crazy stories around due
| process, the ACLU pushed back on more due process rights:
|
| "It promotes an unfair process, inappropriately favoring the
| accused and letting schools ignore their responsibility ..."
|
| https://twitter.com/aclu/status/1063456843706585089?lang=en
|
| Also doing a lot more twitter lecturing I think then in the past.
|
| "There's no one way to be a man.
|
| Men who get their periods are men.
|
| Men who get pregnant and give birth are men.
|
| ... "
|
| It's been lucrative to the ACLU. $750K in salaries and benefits
| to ED, he used to be at $340K range.
| [deleted]
| tempnow987 wrote:
| For those looking for other civil liberties orgs you might look
| at
|
| Institute for Justice - good project on adding some limits to
| civil asset forfeiture:
|
| https://ij.org/issues/private-property/civil-forfeiture/
|
| They were attorneys on the Timbs case (not ACLU) which they won
| at the Supreme Court. They've had lots of success in this in
| lower courts with some crazy cases.
|
| ACLU used to do a lot to improve policing (ie, look at how
| line-ups are conducted etc). Some other groups taking that on -
| this is less about defunding / abolishing police and more about
| improving accuracy of policing (ie, still catch a murderer but
| do it in ways with less collateral damage / fewer false
| allegations).
|
| I'm actually trying to explore the question of other groups as
| I've been an ACLU member since the 90's so just know so much
| more about them! I was drawn to some of their earlier policing
| work (I volunteered in some prisons) in particular because
| certain approaches just result in real problems in policing
| (project innocence helped prove I think many of the ACLU's
| earlier points here).
|
| That said, I think no question a change with Romero. I might
| describe it as a change from a "civil liberty" type org to a
| more traditional "human rights" type org more along the lines
| of NAACP, Sierra Club etc? And a LOT more politically focused
| than in the past from a feeling standpoint? They do things like
| anti-trump ads etc. Historically they might have cheered some
| of the due process protections in Title IX, now they denounce
| them.
|
| Internally worth noting that some efforts around free speech
| issues are seen as "white supremacist" - that may make it
| harder for folks there to take on classic campus type free
| speech issues just internally. Speech = violence type stuff.
|
| DEI is a big push. They are doing interesting work around
| trying to push employers to take identity characteristics into
| account when making employment decisions, including numerical
| goals / targets which historically folks were cautious about.
| They have some good examples here, like reserving 50% of new
| hire slots for black workers only as still being in compliance
| with non-descrimination law as long as black workers are not
| equally represented etc.
| Hasu wrote:
| > They are a nonpolicial (required by charitable status) group
| running ads like this
|
| They're a 501(c)(4), not a 501(c)(3). They aren't nonpolitical
| and have no obligation not to engage in politics. In fact,
| engaging in politics is the entire point of the ACLU
| tempnow987 wrote:
| A 501c4 is a social welfare org. Political activities are
| generally prohibited
|
| " _Political or social activities_. The promotion of social
| welfare does not include direct or indirect participation or
| intervention in political campaigns on behalf of or in
| opposition to any candidate for public office. "
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.501(c)(4)-1
|
| I think this is a fair confusion currently however given
| their strong dem tie-in recently and their current approach
| of taking on individual politicians (for and against) by
| name.
|
| Note: If you are active in the ACLU they have a related ACLU
| Foundation they use to collect 501c3 money, is run by the
| same people out of the same offices, and actually brings in
| more money I think than the c4 if that matters.
| Hasu wrote:
| You are correct about the letter of the law. The Supreme
| Court disagreed in Citizens United v. FEC and ruled that
| the government cannot restrain corporations from making
| independent expenditures for political campaigns. It
| definitely applies to 501c4 orgs, as Citizens United itself
| is one!
| tempnow987 wrote:
| Don't disagree - the "dark money" c4's have (ironically)
| been a complaint on the left for a while.
|
| That said, this is still a real shift for the ACLU - this
| type of campaigning is not something they historically
| really did. So the push to actively campaign more is
| newish for them.
|
| It's def where the money is though - the MAGA orgs, the
| NRA, the ACLU - in some ways they are just following the
| money.
| walkhour wrote:
| Every new generation of left leaning people thinks the subsequent
| generation of left leaning people is going too far.
| jdkee wrote:
| "I used to be a proud card-carrying member of the ACLU. Today,
| when its fundraising mailers and pleas to re-enroll arrive in my
| mailbox, I toss them in the recycling."
|
| Well said.
| car_analogy wrote:
| Has it? That is the charitable view. The uncharitable view is
| that their _stated_ ideals were conditional on advancing their
| unstated goals. Once they started jeopardizing those goals
| instead, they were selectively abandoned.
|
| _When I am weaker than you, I ask you for freedom because that
| is according to your principles; when I am stronger than you, I
| take away your freedom because that is according to my
| principles._
| bell-cot wrote:
| Vague memory is that the ACLU ran off into the organization
| disfunction weeds quite a few years ago, with the CEO and Board
| suing each other, and other fun.
|
| But at least from a quick skim of their Wikipedia page, there's
| no sign of that being true.
|
| Anyone else have a similar memory? Or "true story, but it
| actually was {name of some other organization here}"?
| ksherlock wrote:
| You might be thinking of the Southern Poverty Law Center -
|
| "In 2019, founder Morris Dees was fired, which was followed by
| President Richard Cohen's resignation. An outside consultant,
| Tina Tchen, was brought in to review workplace practices,
| particularly relating to accusations of racial and sexual
| harassment. Margaret Huang, who was formerly the Chief
| Executive at Amnesty International USA, was named as president
| and CEO of the SPLC in early February 2020."
| mlindner wrote:
| > Southern Poverty Law Center
|
| That organization is one of the most harmful organizations in
| the US. In my opinion.
| tenpies wrote:
| Tough call between them and the Lincoln Project.
|
| I mean the fact that they can run a false flag in order to
| incite hatred towards a major political party, get caught,
| and get away with it with zero consequences is just mind-
| blowing.
|
| See: https://www.theguardian.com/us-
| news/2021/oct/30/lincoln-proj...
| colpabar wrote:
| Wait until you hear about how many feds that the DOJ
| won't confirm or deny were involved in jan 6.
| yucky wrote:
| There are hundreds at last count, but the saddest part
| isn't how the DOJ is hiding it, it's that our media is
| letting them.
| tylersmith wrote:
| Helping them, not just letting them.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| nostromo wrote:
| You were downvoted for presenting a straw man and
| assuming bad faith.
|
| Here's a good article addressing what's gone wrong with
| the SPLC:
| https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/splc-
| klan-h...
| [deleted]
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| I read the wikipedia article on SPLC briefly and asked a
| clarifying question
|
| Thank you for clarifying, it sounds like the organisation
| has changed recently
| ethbr0 wrote:
| You could also interprete the downvotes as a community
| indication that your comment is lacking in content or
| insight, or is some other way insufficiently interesting.
| netizen-936824 wrote:
| I looked up SPLC on wikipedia, read what they do, and
| asked a clarifying question.
|
| For this, my original comment now is at -3
| ffggvv wrote:
| yeah the guy who made them a big deal "ira glasser" basically
| chose some guy he had known for not that long as his successor.
| mostly because he was gay and latino. and that guy ended up not
| believing anything that the ACLU stood for and taking it to
| just be an arm of the democratic party. (Anthony d romero)
|
| https://nypost.com/2022/01/31/ex-aclu-head-ira-glasser-slams...
| ivraatiems wrote:
| I continue to support the ACLU and I agree with the argument that
| even if it's lost its way on some things, its overall mission
| remains important, and it continues to do a lot of really great
| work.
|
| However, if you feel you can't support the ACLU, there are a
| couple of related organizations you can and should support
| instead:
|
| The EFF - https://www.eff.org/ - the ACLU but for computers
|
| The FIRE - https://thefire.org/ - the ACLU but for college
| campuses
|
| Would love to hear from people here who might know of others. My
| personal criteria would just be that they're genuinely non-
| partisan (no "the ACLU but for people I agree with), and that
| they fill a niche the ACLU doesn't already fill (though a more
| general "competitor" might be a good thing too).
| notacoward wrote:
| I realized that the ACLU had lost its way many years ago, and
| went looking for alternatives. The most direct alternative I
| could find at the time was the _Bill of Rights Defense
| Committee_ , which has since merged with another group to
| become _Defending Rights and Dissent_.
|
| https://www.rightsanddissent.org/about/
|
| While their tight focus on individual rights might appeal to
| those who identify as libertarians, I personally favor
| organizations that acknowledge the existence of threats to
| liberty other than government, and that consequently balance
| their concern for individual/corporate rights with concern for
| things like justice and equality. In that context, I find the
| _Center for Constitutional Rights_ much more amenable and
| perhaps others will too.
|
| https://ccrjustice.org/
| eltondegeneres wrote:
| FIRE has historically been associated with conservatives, but I
| don't know if that's changed in recent years.
| lynndotpy wrote:
| Yeah. If ACLU is too biased for someone, I really can't see
| FIRE being much better.
|
| But the EFF is excellent in my experience. They're probably
| most known for Certbot / Let's Encrypt
| cuteboy19 wrote:
| EFFs mission is very limited which is a good thing given
| whatever it is that Mozilla Foundation keeps doing
| not_really wrote:
| Nice
| yucky wrote:
| That's just due to the nature of who finds themselves on the
| wrong side of college administrations. They are non-partisan
| though, see some of the sources posted in this thread.
| nverno wrote:
| College administrators themselves, are typically hostage to
| the views of students/donors/board of directors/governors,
| etc. these days- otherwise they don't last too long. They
| walk a fine line.
| margalabargala wrote:
| Looking through their website, it doesn't look right-leaning
| (to someone unfamiliar with FIRE before just now).
|
| They recently started organizing against Florida's "Stop WOKE
| Act": https://www.thefire.org/fire-calls-on-florida-
| institutions-a...
| [deleted]
| eatonphil wrote:
| If you go to their college free speech rankings page [0]
| most of the comments are about how conservative students
| don't feel comfortable on colleges and universities
| (private _and_ public, to my slight surprise).
|
| I can see how someone might make take that as conservative
| friendly since they are mostly featuring conservative
| students expressing fear about talking about conservative
| ideas.
|
| I'm not making a judgement on any of that.
|
| [0] https://rankings.thefire.org/
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| Disclaimer, I have no context about FIRE. But, I feel
| there are a few possible reasons for this:
|
| If the culture on a college campus has little-to-no bias
| towards sharing or suppressing conservative ideas, them
| singling out conservative ideas being suppressed would
| give you enough of a signal that they are conservative
| leaning.
|
| If the culture on a college campus biases towards sharing
| conservative ideas, them singling out conservative ideas
| being suppressed would give you enough of a signal that
| they are conservative leaning.
|
| If the culture on a college campus biases towards
| suppressing conservative ideas, them singling out
| conservative ideas being suppressed wouldn't generate
| enough of a signal to justify calling them conservative
| leaning.
|
| TL;DR: whether or not you consider their stance as
| conservative leaning will be strongly influenced by how
| you perceive discourse on a college campus.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| the ACLU has been historically associated with nazis and
| terrorists. FIRE, to my knowledge has not discriminated in
| their advocacy for the plaintiffs in title ix disputes which
| is one of their primary areas of focus so it seems like a
| reach to call them a conservative-aligned organization
| scythe wrote:
| FIRE absolutely does speak up for liberals, as seen e.g.
| here:
|
| https://reason.com/volokh/2022/03/16/oklahoma-christian-
| univ...
| colpabar wrote:
| The ACLU has historically been associated with nazis :^)
| pessimizer wrote:
| The litmus test for that would be if they're defending
| Palestinians.
| pavon wrote:
| I'll add another:
|
| The Institute for Justice - https://ij.org/ - a "libertarian"
| ACLU
|
| I consider their core focus to be on issues that are universal
| and non-partisan like Free Speech, Police Abuse, Civil
| Forfeiture, while also veering into more partisan issues like
| Educational Choice. I haven't found any truly non-partisan
| organizations like you are asking for, but feel that the IJ
| fills in some gaps in cases that ACLU used to or should be
| focusing on, and the areas where I disagree with it "balances"
| out the areas where I disagree with the ACLU.
| jscipione wrote:
| How did this article get published? I always thought that the
| Atlanta was a yellow journalism outlet, but this article defies
| that belief. Bravo Atlantic for pointing out this important issue
| and its detrimental effects on the freedom of speech.
| uxp100 wrote:
| The Atlantic publishes things like this pretty frequently.
| People on their staff who are not liberals: Connor
| Freidersdorf, David Frum (eww), and (well, she is a liberal but
| has some edgy feminism takes) Caitlin Flanagan.
|
| It's a fairly enjoyable magazine, that used to have a (really
| ugly and hostile) comment section that the writers would
| actually engage with. Which was pretty cool. In a truly
| embarrassing ethical mistep a former editor allowed Hillary's
| campaign to dictate some details about his coverage (he had to
| use the word muscular lol) in exchange for giving him access to
| a speech ahead of time so he could start writing his article
| early, IIRC. That was less cool.
| PedroBatista wrote:
| The ACLU lost its way a long time ago and that's not really news
| because it's in the "good" company of most non-profits.
|
| We all "know" they are rotten but we are still "shocked" when we
| learn exactly what they do - aka "How the sausage is made".
|
| It reminds me that time ( possibly now ) when Politico's
| "journalists" went around the World asking money from Governments
| and other public institutions in order for them to write good
| things about them ( visibility!! ) but also "asking" money to not
| write bad things about them..
|
| Sometimes the drunk bums around the corner are 100% right: this
| shit stinks!!!
| daniel-cussen wrote:
| paywallasinbeer wrote:
| [deleted]
| ellen364 wrote:
| Can you remember where you read the allegation about Politico?
| It isn't in the "controversies" section of the Politico Wiki
| page [0] and a couple of Google searches for things like
| "politico corruption" and "politico pay for articles" weren't
| helpful.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politico#Controversies
| dillondoyle wrote:
| Tell me what I know about this rot?!
| lesgobrandon wrote:
| jmyeet wrote:
| > Terence Dougherty, the organization's general counsel,
| testified via video deposition that the ACLU had spearheaded the
| effort and served as Heard's ghostwriter in exchange for her
| promise to donate $3.5 million to the organization.
|
| This is interesting, especially given the interest in the trial,
| but largely irrelevant.
|
| First, no matter who actually ghostwrote the op-ed piece in WaPo,
| Amber Heard put her name on it.
|
| Second, charities engage in fundraising activities. It doesn't
| surprise me at all that the ACLU was actively involved in the op-
| ed piece. You have to remember that prior to the current trial,
| Depp's reputation was really in tatters. Heard was seen as the
| victim so getting broader circulation for her story probably
| seemed both a good idea and consistent with the ACLU's perceived
| values.
|
| > When Heard failed to pay up, Doughtery said, the ACLU collected
| $100,000 from Depp himself
|
| So here I believe the article has made a factual error. I can't
| find an exact date for this but from watching the trial, the
| check Depp sent to the ACLU for $100,000 was part of the divorce
| settlement, which would put it more than 2 years prior to the op-
| ed piece.
|
| > Progressive causes are near and dear to my heart. I am a
| feminist and staunch Democrat.
|
| This is a contradiction. Democrats not only aren't progressives,
| they do their utmost to eliminate and ostracize any actual
| progressives from their ranks. Consider right at the time the
| Supreme Court draft was leaked, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, one
| of the 3 most powerful Democrats in the country, was in Texas
| campaigning for the only anti-choice Democrat in the House in a
| primary over progressive candidates [1].
|
| The author doesn't really explain what issues they have with the
| ACLU other than some off-the-cuff statements about supporting
| Stacy Abrams. Given Georgia's voter suppression bill [2] that her
| opponent ultimately signed into law, this actually does seem
| consistent with protecting "civil liberties".
|
| The author meanders about the point that the ACLU should be
| protecting "free speech" without saying how it isn't. It's really
| a complaint about other causes but remember it's the American
| Civil Liberties Union not the American Free Speech Union. Voter
| rights, as an example, fall directly under the umbrella of civil
| liberties.
|
| More often than not, when someone has a take like this, it
| usually means they're a TERF but I can't find anything she's
| publicly written that's obviously transphobic so I'm scratching
| my head as to what the actual issue is here. I've found some
| complaints about Kamala Harrais being more progressive as a
| prosecutor than VP (which is legitimate) but nothing obvious.
|
| As for her complaints about ACLU opposition to Title IX, I
| honestly don't know a lot about this but the ACLU's original suit
| seemed to be to opposed a higher standard for sexual harassment
| investigations and claims [3]. That seems a legitimate complaint,
| no?
|
| Whatever the cause, it doesn't seem like the author is explicit
| about what her actual issue is.
|
| [1]: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/23/nancy-pelosi-
| henry-c...
|
| [2]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/02/us/politics/georgia-
| votin...
|
| [3]: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-sues-betsy-devos-
| al...
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| I stopped giving to ACLU years ago when it became clear their
| mission to champion a grab-bag of lefty causes had superseded
| their free-speech defending goal. This pivot has lead them, at
| times, to actually defend the government against citizen requests
| for public records! I never thought I'd see the ACLU fighting on
| the government's behalf against FOIA/open records type requests
| but here it is: https://www.womensliberationfront.org/aclu-
| lawsuit-public-re...
|
| In the above case, some female prisoners in Washington state
| wanted to know how many male prisoners had been transferred to
| women's prisons. The state didn't want to share that information
| (even in aggregate) and the ACLU defended the state's assertion
| that this information should be kept secret from the public,
| including from the imprisoned women whom this policy impacted
| directly.
|
| _Why_ the government would want to keep this secret is a good
| question, but the main point here is: did people donating to the
| ACLU realize their money is being used to fight private citizen
| information requests & defend government secrecy? How the mighty
| have fallen.
| [deleted]
| joshuamorton wrote:
| These are citizens private healthcare information. You
| shouldn't be able to foia this anymore than my medicare
| records. Citizens don't lose their right to privacy because
| they're in prison. Goodness.
| cluedos wrote:
| No, these are important questions regarding policy around
| sex-based rights.
|
| The FOIA requestor did not ask for any private information,
| merely for the number of the people.
| Clubber wrote:
| If you read his link, it states the request is for counts,
| not individual names. 1. A complete and
| accurate count of inmates who identify as transgender (gender
| identity differs from sex identified at birth) in the custody
| of the Washington Department of Corrections [please break
| this information down by location] 2. Number of
| inmates that have been transferred from a men's facility to a
| women's facility since January 01, 2021 3. Total
| number of male persons who identify as female, non-binary, or
| any other gender identity that are currently housed in a
| women's facility 4. Number of inmates who have
| transferred from a women's facility to a men's facility from
| January 01, 2021 to March 18, 2021 5. Number of
| female persons who identify as male, non-binary or any other
| gender identity that are currently housed in a men's facility
| barelysapient wrote:
| For some the issue so sensitive that even a broad and
| impersonal question is hugely offensive. And negative
| intent is immediately assumed of the questioner.
| vmception wrote:
| this FOIA request arbitrarily mixes sex and gender, which
| actually does show a lack of understanding towards trans
| and non-binary people (as well as willingness to
| understand, materialized as fear. fear is the phobia part
| of transphobia)
|
| so even though GP tried to be accurate and progressive-
| enough in their admonishment of the ACLU to find a way to
| have a rational way of expressing and discussing _their_
| fear, the people involved have made a malformed FOIA
| request and are expressing their calcified opinion
| conflating sex and gender identity.
| fleetinging wrote:
| Clubber wrote:
| What does that have to do with denying a FOIA request?
| Sorry, you used the wrong pronouns, you are denied FOIA?
| Intent of the FOIA request is irrelevant, otherwise the
| government could deny FOIA for people who want to make
| the government look bad, which honestly is probably the
| case here.
| vmception wrote:
| its not about a pronoun, so looks like you're also
| conflating concepts
|
| no pronouns need to be added or used to correct the
| malformed FOIA request
|
| it conflates sex and gender, I said what I said, its
| accurate that it is doing that.
|
| > Total number of male persons who identify as female,
| non-binary, or any other gender identity
|
| The request would be "Total number of male persons that
| identify as women". The sex doesn't change, the gender
| does. The FOIA request would say invalid, or zero, and be
| accurate, regarding the ones identifying as "female". The
| "other gender identify" may cover it, but not
| necessarily. Males identifying as men wouldn't have been
| transferred. So "other than what"? "Female" is not a
| gender, unless we are accepting that any arbitrary
| identification is valid, but would that be grounds for
| transfer?
|
| But yes that can just say "males transferred", because
| they remain male.
|
| Its a conditional argument because legal circumstances
| follow conditional logic. So if it seems obtuse, oh well,
| thats how it works.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| But that's not what happened. Instead, the state refused
| to fill the FOIA request at all, and the ACLU sued to
| help them.
|
| If this had been maliciously complied with, the whole
| discussion would have been different.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| Yes, and in the case of small N (which, like, is the case
| here), those are problematic to disclose!
| tsimionescu wrote:
| How would knowing "1 Transwoman is currently housed in a
| female prison on the territory of Washington state" in
| any way risk causing harm to that transwoman, or help you
| identify her in any way?
| prepend wrote:
| It doesn't. I think GP is confusing small cell counts in
| micro data (a real problem) with small numbers in
| aggregate data (sometimes a problem).
|
| In this case, just a count and prison is not a privacy
| issue as someone would have to already know the
| individual is trans to identify them. And that's the only
| information contained in the data release.
| giantg2 wrote:
| How so? You'd have to figure out the N in a population of
| hundreds of thousands (the state's prison population)
| without any other variables to go on.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| It breaks down the N by location, which... what defines a
| location here? Is it a state? Is it a single prison? For
| a small N, narrow location is definitely a de-
| anonymization factor.
| giantg2 wrote:
| There's no mention of any narrow locations. The numbers
| are at the state level per the request in the article.
| fzeroracer wrote:
| It should be incredibly obvious that this information would
| make it very easy to identify the individuals in question
| (especially with #1).
| Clubber wrote:
| I would think you could identify them by looking at their
| booking photos as well.
|
| Here's a link to a public inmate search for Washington
| state.
|
| https://www.doc.wa.gov/information/search.htm
| colpabar wrote:
| quick somebody call the ACLU!
| prepend wrote:
| Aggregate counts are not private healthcare information when
| released in a way that limits reidentification. The Privacy
| Act (and HIPAA) allows for deidentified data to be shared
| broadly.
|
| Anyway, prisoner gender is not healthcare data, it's
| administrative data that describes prisoner population
| demographics.
|
| I would agree with you if the request was for individual
| medical information on treatment or procedures or something.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Aggregate counts are not private healthcare information
| when released in a way that limits reidentification. The
| Privacy Act (and HIPAA) allows for deidentified data to be
| shared broadly.
|
| Possibly, but you're almost assuredly looking at a sample
| of N=10 or fewer, so the answer would be "*" anyway.
| prepend wrote:
| Not if it's just a count. Because, even with a low count
| it wouldn't be used to identify someone.
|
| Let's say there were 3 transgender people in the state,
| or even a facility. If they reveal that number it doesn't
| identify an individual or divulge any confidential
| information.
|
| The low counts have to be suppressed when coupled with
| other data or linked to other data.
|
| If you included count by age group, then you would need
| to change from a low count to a suppressed marker.
|
| For example 3 transgenders in the 80+ age group might
| reveal their identity because there aren't many 80+
| inmates.
|
| But just having a small count with no other info is not
| really a cause to remove the value.
| deathanatos wrote:
| It sounded like aggregate numbers were being requested, not
| names. (Though, the link is only one side of the story.)
| Assuming that is correct (that it is merely an aggregate
| count), does that not maintain medical privacy, while
| allowing public access to the information on how the state is
| running prisons?
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| I don't think your sex is "private healthcare information."
| How would sharing the total number of males in various
| facilities violate an individuals privacy rights? (sidebar:
| if you think you retain your right to privacy in prison...
| all I can say is you've clearly never been to prison :)
|
| Regarding the right to privacy, what's your take on the
| privacy rights of the (female) women who are being physically
| forced to house & sleep in a cell with males?
| munificent wrote:
| _> what 's your take on the privacy rights of the (female)
| women who are being physically forced to house & sleep in a
| cell with males?_
|
| Keeping penises out of the same room with vaginas will not
| magically eliminate sexual assault because sexual assault
| is based on power and willingness to harm another, not
| whether not tab A physically fits into slot B.
|
| If you think keeping penises away from vaginas will
| eliminate prison rape then clearly you don't know much
| about rape in mens' prisons.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| I am having trouble following your line of thinking.
| You're saying that because rape is common in mens'
| prisons* we should not be concerned about putting males
| in women's prisons? Wouldn't it make more sense to say
| "men rape in mens prisons, so women's concerns about
| being housed with males is reasonable"?
|
| In any event, I still don't see how any of this justifies
| keeping this whole topic in the shadows and making public
| discourse impossible by keeping the scope of the question
| secret from the public.
|
| * I'm taking your word for this, haven't looked it up.
| munificent wrote:
| Let me lay it out more abstractly:
|
| The goal (I assume! You haven't spelled this out.) is to
| reduce the rate of sexual assault between cellmates in
| prison.
|
| The system has to determine who can end up in the same
| cell. Prison wardens have access to some data about
| prisoners. The question is which data is used to
| partition prisoners.
|
| Your claim appears to be that one prisoner having a penis
| and the other having a vagina is a strong predictor of an
| increased odds of sexual assault.
|
| My point is that that claim requires some level of
| supporting evidence since the widespread accounts of
| prison rape in same-sex prisons implies that simply
| avoiding penises and vaginas in the same cell does not
| appear to be sufficient to lower the chances of rape.
|
| Implicit in your comment is only looking at this from the
| perspective of the woman in the cell who doesn't have a
| penis. But the other cellmate has to end up _somewhere_
| and the overall goal should be to reduce the rate of
| sexual assault for _all_ prisoners, not just cis ones.
|
| So, if you don't allow trans women into women's cells,
| where do you put them? And do you really think putting a
| trans woman in a cell with a _male_ prisoner is going to
| lead to a _lower_ incidence of assault?
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| > Your claim appears to be that one prisoner having a
| penis and the other having a vagina is a strong predictor
| of an increased odds of sexual assault.
|
| If you don't think this is an issue, can you explain why
| we should have any sex segregation in prisons at all?
|
| It sounds like you're arguing for mixed sex prisons, even
| within individual cells.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > why we should have any sex segregation in prisons at
| all?
|
| Or age segregation. Just because a 50 year old man has a
| penis and is 3x the weight of a 13 year old girl doesn't
| mean that they shouldn't be locked in a cell together.
| That's just your bigoted assumption that he's a violent
| person, you don't even know him.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| how many 13 year girls are currently serving adult
| sentences in penitentiaries?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If you don't think this is an issue, can you explain
| why we should have any sex segregation in prisons at all?
|
| Historically, mostly patriarchal misogyny; specifically,
| the belief that while women were _inherently_ more
| virtuous, those who had "fallen" a state subject to
| imprisonment had fallen further, and less correctibly
| than men, and that they were a corrupting influence that
| would impair the rehabilitation of imprisoned men (that
| 's also why imprisoned women, originally segregated
| within prisons rather than in separate prisons, were
| often given fewer meals, not encouraged to socialize, and
| otherwise treated worse than male prisoners.)
|
| More recently, in order to avoid reexamining the actual
| policy of segregation, societies have tried to retcon a
| more modern rationalization, but that rationalization is
| not actually the _reason_ for the policy, just an excuse
| for it.
| munificent wrote:
| Let me take a step back and look at this another way. The
| initial comment I replied to looked at the issue only
| from the perspective of the woman in the cell. It treated
| it as "should a trans woman be with her: yes/no?".
|
| But that's not the actual choice prisons have to make.
| The choice they have to make is " _which cell_ does the
| trans woman go into "? Given that there likely aren't
| enough trans women prisoners to put them only with other
| trans women, the choice is "with a cis man or with a cis
| woman." And I believe pretty strongly that putting a
| trans woman in a cell with a cis male is more likely to
| result in assault than putting a trans woman with a cis
| woman.
|
| I could be wrong. But given what I've read about trans
| women being the target of sexual assault _outside_ of
| prison and sexual assault among males in male prisons, I
| think it 's a fairly safe bet.
|
| I guess the question hinges on whether you imagine a
| trans woman to be more "like a man" (stereotypically
| stronger, aggressive, and more prone to perpetrate
| assault) or "like a woman" (stereotypically weaker,
| passive, and more prone to being the victim of assault).
| What I know about trans women suggests the latter more
| than the former.
|
| Obviously, individual behavior trumps all. Any particular
| woman (trans or not) who has a history of violence or
| sexual assault towards women should not be housed with
| another woman. The same should be true for men (again,
| trans or not).
|
| The name of the game should be keeping perpetrators away
| from victims, and my belief is that "has a penis while
| other has a vagina" is a relatively poor proxy for that.
| Yes, there is a strong correlation, but that's a
| Simpson's paradox from combining the much smaller trans
| population with the very large cis population. If you
| were to separate out the datasets and consider cis men
| and women separately from trans men and women, I suspect
| you would see no or the opposite correlation.
| cluedos wrote:
| > _And I believe pretty strongly that putting a trans
| woman in a cell with a cis male is more likely to result
| in assault than putting a trans woman with a cis woman._
|
| Why do you believe this?
|
| And, more importantly, why is it somehow the
| responsibility of women to be used as a mitigation for
| male on male violence?
|
| If a male attacks a trans-identifying male, or there is a
| risk of this happening, that is entirely a male issue. So
| why should incarcerating the trans-identifying male
| amongst women be the solution?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > If a male attacks a trans-identifying male, or there is
| a risk of this happening, that is entirely a male issue.
|
| No, if a prisoner attacks a prisoner with whom they were
| placed, due to reasons which are reasonably foreseeable
| and preventable, it's a _prison system_ issue, not an
| issue for the gender class of the attacker or victim,
| whether they are the same or different, irrespective of
| the basis in which gender is ascribed.
|
| Even moreso than with restrooms, it's very clear that
| gender segregation, whether based on ascribed gender at
| birth or gender identity, is not even approximately an
| effective protection against predatory behavior, so the
| safety issue:
|
| (1) Isn't a good defense for any model of gender
| segregation, and
|
| (2) Needs addressed by mechanisms other than gender
| segregation (one of the more effective of which is
| probably _imprisoning fewer people, at lower levels of
| crowding_ ), which, surprisingly, pretty much no one that
| is using the danger to argue for their preferred model of
| gender segregation even pretends to be concerned about.
| cluedos wrote:
| So are you advocating for entirely mixed-sex prisons or
| what? That's an extremely radical view.
|
| An important part of addressing these issues of violence
| in the prison system has been, up until recently, the
| segregation of inmates by their sex. This is in addition
| to other policies regarding the prison environment.
|
| If you want to undo that policy of sex segregation, you
| should have a very good reason, and proof that it won't
| cause harm to the sex who, in general, have lesser
| physical strength and can be impregnated by the other.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > An important part of addressing these issues of
| violence in the prison system has been, up until
| recently, the segregation of inmates by their sex.
|
| No, it hasn't.
|
| That's an after the fact rationalization for preserving
| the policy invented long after segregation on fairly
| explicitly misogynistic grounds was established, when the
| original motivation was no longer something people felt
| comfortable saying overtly in government.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| > And I believe pretty strongly that putting a trans
| woman in a cell with a cis male is more likely to result
| in assault than putting a trans woman with a cis woman.
|
| Why do you believe this?
|
| Anyway, I believe women have a right to dignity and
| privacy and to set some boundaries against males in
| refuges & places they are especially vulnerable. Female
| prisoners should absolutely be allowed to refuse to share
| sleeping quarters with males. Frankly think it's nuts
| that this should be considered a controversial stance.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| The "penis and vagina" characterization is too reductive.
| What's at issue is that males are generally bigger,
| stronger, and more sexually aggressive than females.
| These factors in aggregate create increased risk when
| forcing proximity between men and women while in
| vulnerable contexts. But none of this needs extra
| demonstration, this is all common knowledge.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| hrt is effectively chemical castration by another name.
| one of the primary effects of estrogen and anti androgens
| is erectile dysfunction combined with the shrinking &
| atrophy of the genitals along with a typically highly
| diminished sex drive. on balance, this issue, just like
| sports, is incredibly optically poor for trans people
| regardless of the facts at hand. the suggestion that mtf
| trans create an elevated risk for rapes and assaults is a
| deeply unfair cultural bias that is probably not going
| away for at least a generation. similarly putting mtf
| trans into the male prison system seems likely to subject
| them to incredibly high risk. there are other nations &
| cultures that have had a legally recognized 3rd gender
| for much longer than trans rights have been an area of
| focus in the west, i imagine we could learn a great deal
| from them on these issues in particular.
| fleetinging wrote:
| Not all trans-identifying people use HRT. Indeed some
| deliberately make no bodily interventions whatsoever -
| see e.g. Alex Drummond, a 'trans woman' with beard,
| moustache, and his intact male body.
|
| Third gender in the cultures you allude to is typically
| just a way of othering gay man, of the "you can't be a
| real man" variety. It's nothing positive to emulate.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| > Your claim appears to be that one prisoner having a
| penis and the other having a vagina is a strong predictor
| of an increased odds of sexual assault.
|
| > My point is that that claim requires some level of
| supporting evidence.
|
| The DOJ says 99% of rape and sexual assaults are by
| males, and that 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault
| are female and 9% male [1].
|
| This is generic data, not trans specific or prison
| specific. But in the absence of specific data, it seems
| pretty relevant.
|
| [1] U.S. Dept. of Justice, Violence Against Women Report,
| 2002. via https://stoprape.humboldt.edu/statistics
| at_a_remove wrote:
| Let's do that power bit.
|
| Okay, so ... statistically, would your average transwoman
| be taller than your average biowoman? Stronger? There's
| your power.
| Karunamon wrote:
| It will, however, eliminate pregnancy.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Transwomen are not normally fertile, since the hormone
| treatments seriously impede the working of their
| testicles (if they still have them).
| cluedos wrote:
| It's all about 'gender identity' these days, not hormones
| and surgery.
|
| Indeed, in trans circles, expecting the latter as a
| required factor is often considered highly offensive.
| This, and the notion that a person needs to experience
| gender dysphoria to be trans, is now derisively known as
| the 'truscum' point of view.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| One would assume surgery or hormones are required to
| change your gender designation in Washington State, but
| in fact this is not the case (neither is required).
| Here's the form to change gender designation on your
| driver's license in WA, anyone living in washington state
| can do it today: https://www.dol.wa.gov/forms/520043.pdf
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Ironically, a lot of the arguments I've seen could be
| construed as misandrist because they're operating under
| the presumption that men are rapists and thus transgender
| people in women's prisons must be rapists. That's why the
| argument always focuses around transgender women while
| failing to address that their same argument would send
| transgender men to the far less safe male prison.
|
| The actual problem is that prisons are unsafe for
| everyone and there's little done to make them safer. But
| they'd rather use transgender people in their culture war
| because they don't care about the actual violence
| problems.
| pessimizer wrote:
| You mean they'd rather fix the problem that is entirely
| an own goal than tackle the problem of reorganizing the
| entire penal system in a deeply unpopular and expensive
| way?
|
| Once prison is organized like a summer camp with a 2:1
| guard to prisoner ratio, we can do them co-ed.
| [deleted]
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| Strawman. It's not about elimination, but a very
| predictable increase in rapes due to this policy change.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| > Regarding the right to privacy, what's your take on the
| privacy rights of the (female) women who are being
| physically forced to house & sleep in a cell with males?
|
| Any argument here about privacy is entirely independent of
| sex and gender. Prison is dehumanizing, address that. Don't
| be a transphobe.
|
| Edit: There's a bunch of mistaken comments here assuming
| that this will protect women prisoners in some capacity.
| That's totally wrong! Women in prison are sexually
| assaulted, raped, and even impregnated by men all the time
| and have been for years. Those men are _guards_ [0]. And
| this happens at a vastly higher rate per capita and overall
| than any assault by trans inmates. Anyone here with a
| legitimate interest in protecting women in prison would be
| attempting to address that harm, because it is far more
| dire for numerous reasons.
|
| [0]: https://ktla.com/news/nationworld/the-rape-club-
| womens-priso...
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| Is a woman a transphobe for not wanting to share a jail
| cell with a person who has a penis? I think most people
| would consider safeguarding female prisoners from males
| common sense.
|
| I think you should take a moment to consider the (female)
| women in this situation. Imagine you're a woman 100% at
| the mercy of the state, and the state locks you in a cell
| with a male person. Put yourself in their shoes, and try
| to extend some empathy to them.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| I never made any comment about women in prison. I have
| empathy to anyone in prison. Like I said, its deeply
| inhumane.
|
| I think people in prison should be protected from other
| people in prison if they are dangerous, and I think
| prisons fail to do that today. I don't accept your
| presumption that having a penis makes someone inherently
| more dangerous.
|
| Again: if your goal is to protect women in prison, the
| best way to do that is to advocate for reform that makes
| prisons safer for _everyone_. Not by being transphobic,
| which you 're doing _instead_.
| denton-scratch wrote:
| > people in prison should be protected from other people
| in prison
|
| I strongly agree; if you deprive someone of their
| liberty, then you take on the responsibility of
| protecting them - because you've deprived them of the
| ability to protect themselves.
|
| I'm not aware of any prison regime that takes the safety
| of prisoners as a key objective. [Edit] Nor do I know of
| a state that handles the deliberate negligence of
| prisoner welfare as a criminal offence.
| jibe wrote:
| _I don 't accept your presumption that having a penis
| makes someone inherently more dangerous_
|
| The data really really doesn't support your view. Men are
| objectively more dangerous.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/251886/murder-
| offenders-...
|
| https://stoprape.humboldt.edu/statistics
|
| _An estimated 91% of victims of rape & sexual assault
| are female and 9% male. Nearly 99% of perpetrators are
| male_
| TotempaaltJ wrote:
| It is not the possession of a penis that causes men to be
| more dangerous.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Men share more than the possession of a penis, of course.
| But saying the possession of a penis doesn't make men
| more dangerous in the face of male rape is like saying
| that a pistol doesn't make a man more dangerous.
| the_why_of_y wrote:
| Clearly trans women can't be put in men's prisons if men
| are this dangerous.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| >"Again: if your goal is to protect women in prison, the
| best way to do that is to advocate for reform that makes
| prisons safer for everyone. Not by being transphobic,
| which you're doing instead. "
|
| Perfect is the enemy of good and while it's hard to
| disagree with the sentiment of "reform that makes prisons
| safer for _everyone_ ", we have no idea what that
| actually entails and that's so much of a monumental task
| that it's basically a non-starter. I feel like the
| sentiment here is "this wouldn't be a problem if we
| changed everything, so why don't we?"
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _I don 't think your sex is "private healthcare
| information."_
|
| Your sex is private information _under GDPR_. Why would the
| GDPR be stricter than than HIPAA in this case?
|
| > _Regarding the right to privacy, what 's your take on the
| privacy rights of the (female) women who are being
| physically forced to house & sleep in a cell with males?_
|
| "But what about the children?" is never a good argument for
| taking the away the rights of others.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| You're assuming male prisoners have a "right" to be
| housed with female prisoners, and that female prisoners
| have no right to sex-segregated facilities. Whether the
| former "right" exists is far from a settled question.
|
| Assuming the former right does exist, then there is a
| conflict of rights (between the wishes of males who want
| to be housed with females, and females who want to be
| housed without males). Rights conflicts like this are not
| solved by simply telling one group (in this case, women)
| to shut up and stop complaining.
|
| Where the ACLU comes in here I have no idea.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| Caveat: We don't actually sex-segregate prisons. We
| segregate based off of primary and secondary sex
| characteristics.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| This is nonsense that serves only to obfuscate. Normally
| this sort of stuff is put forward by people trying to
| confuse and befuddle the reader.
|
| We segregate prisons by sex. Primary and secondary sex
| characteristics are observable _characteristics_ that
| indicate one 's sex.
|
| Your argument is like saying "You don't buy a Mazda. You
| go to the Mazda dealership and buy a car that says Mazda
| on the back, interior, and on the manual. You don't
| actually _know_ the car is a Mazda. "
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Using "males" and "females" here is irrelevant and
| actively seeking to confuse.
|
| People typically consider that women (cis or trans) have
| a right to be housed together, and separately from
| cismen.
|
| If anything, the biggest problem of policy are trans-men,
| who would likely feel much more concerned by being housed
| with cis-man prisoners, but who would also make women
| uncomfortable.
| ryan93 wrote:
| The desire of women not to be housed with men has nothing
| to do with the interior gender experience of the male in
| question.
| fleetinging wrote:
| pessimizer wrote:
| > Rights conflicts like this are not solved by simply
| telling one group (in this case, women) to shut up and
| stop complaining.
|
| I'm pretty sure that's how conflicts with women have been
| historically resolved.
| colpabar wrote:
| It's so odd to me that liberals, who seem to care a lot
| about women's rights, just flat out dismiss women who are
| genuinely concerned about being raped in prison by males
| who were secretly transferred to female prisons.
|
| >"But what about the children?" is never a good argument
| for taking the away the rights of others.
|
| I also hope that you don't point to school shootings to
| argue against the second amendment then.
| tsimionescu wrote:
| Why is that surprising? There is no proof that transwomen
| are any more likely to rape ciswomen than other ciswomen
| are.
|
| On the other hand, it is well known that transwomen are
| much more often the victims of rape by cismen, if living
| in men's prisons.
|
| If anything, I would think the biggest problem here is
| the fate of transmen. I doubt a ciswoman would feel very
| comfortable sharing a cell with a transman, but a
| transman also has much higher chances of being abused if
| sharing a cell with a cisman.
| colpabar wrote:
| This is extremely un-PC, but cis women fear being raped
| by humans with penises much more than they do humans
| without them.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| > There is no proof that transwomen are any more likely
| to rape ciswomen than other ciswomen are.
|
| There is no proof males who identify as trans
| (transwomen) are any less likely to commit rape than
| males who do not identify as trans. The rape risk of
| being housed with a male is real regardless of how the
| male identifies with regards to gender. If you have data
| to the contrary (data indicating that trans identifying
| males are less likely to commit rape than other males)
| please share.
| Khaine wrote:
| And yet, in the short time its been happening this has
| occurred
| https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2022/apr/14/two-
| inmates...
| joshuamorton wrote:
| The article notes that the relationships were consensual.
| Like, do you think no one in prison would want to have
| sex? (The article could be misleading, but also there's
| presumably lots of consensual sex in prison, much as
| there is quite a bit of non-consensual sex).
| [deleted]
| fleetinging wrote:
| pessimizer wrote:
| > There is no proof that transwomen are any more likely
| to rape ciswomen than other ciswomen are.
|
| Are you just making this up, or do you have some
| statistics on female on female rape?
| nemothekid wrote:
| > _It 's so odd to me that liberals, who seem to care a
| lot about women's rights, just flat out dismiss women who
| are genuinely concerned about being raped in prison by
| males who were secretly transferred to female prisons._
|
| Really? Are there actual women who are genuinely
| concerned about this or is this a strawman invented by
| other people? You see this _same_ issue with transwomen
| in sports. There is massive concern-trolling for women
| "who want a level playing field", but when you actually
| _ask_ women who compete with them (like in the case of
| Lia Thomas), they don't have a problem with it.
|
| You are masking your transphobia in coddling for women
| who aren't even complaining about these issues. Women in
| prison are far more likely to be raped by law
| enforcement; but somehow the 3 or so transwomen who might
| sleep in the same cell as a woman is a bigger mark for
| the ACLU.
|
| > _I also hope that you don 't point to school shootings
| to argue against the second amendment then._
|
| That's actually pretty simple for me, I don't think gun
| rights are inalienable rights, no more than I think I
| have a right to own a playstation.
| fleetinging wrote:
| giantg2 wrote:
| They're asking for aggregate data, not personal data.
| Clubber wrote:
| >Why the government would want to keep this secret is a good
| question
|
| It's because if the public found out, it would be either be
| considered illegal or unethical or ultimately make them look
| bad. That's the general rule of why anyone in government keeps
| an action secret. Now consider how much stuff the government
| wants to keep secret.
| bko wrote:
| I guess the follow up question would be why the government
| transferred biological men to a women's prison, especially if
| it could be illegal, unethical and make them look bad?
| pessimizer wrote:
| Not a follow-up for the ACLU, who should be concentrating
| solely on records release (on the opposite side than they
| took.)
|
| The modern disease is that everyone seems to be running a
| keynesian beauty contest, trying to figure out what side
| the truth is better for, and pretending it's a lie if it's
| against their side. Principles aren't a means, they're an
| end.
|
| It's a world of propagandists (public relations
| professionals.)
| agloeregrets wrote:
| [deleted]
| usrn wrote:
| There's a whole lot of cringe in this comment. The practical
| reasons for wanting this should be immediately obvious.
| nostromo wrote:
| In general "male" refers to sex, "men" to gender. While I
| agree the comment could be written more kindly, this comment
| was referring to biological sex, not gender identity.
| tiahura wrote:
| "In general "male" refers to sex, "men" to gender."
|
| For the 99% of the world's population that hasn't been
| browbeat into submissivenesses, they are the same.
| nostromo wrote:
| Sure, I agree. But my point is that the commenter did not
| misgender anyone, even by the general standards of the
| trans community.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| No matter how nasty the reason was for the FOIA request - why
| should an organization who historically has defended free
| speech in most if not all circumstances going to such lengths
| to defeat it? What happened to defending the Westboro Baptist
| Church and skinheads re: freedom of speech?
| fzeroracer wrote:
| Let's say there was a hypothetical corporation looking to
| identify employee participation in a protest. Would you
| defend that corporation making an FOIA request to identify
| who might've participated?
|
| Who's freedom of speech do you think deserves to be
| defended, the corporation or the individuals in question?
|
| Now apply that logic to this scenario, where the group in
| question is looking to identify individuals in order to
| make a scapegoat out of them for their own private
| decisions. Who's freedom deserves defending?
| themaninthedark wrote:
| From a post above:
|
| >IIRC, FOIA does not grant you a right to personal
| information collected on citizens. The agencies have the
| right to redact that in whole or in part from the records
| sought.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| Please reread my comment, I don't use the terms "man" or
| "men" once. It seems you object to the idea that imprisoned
| female people should be allowed to have an opinion on being
| forced to share a jail cell with a male person.
|
| Personally, I think female people are well within their
| rights to voice concerns about this. If you see it
| differently, I'd be grateful to hear your rationale on why
| the government should be able to move males into women's
| prisons in secret, as the ACLU asserts.
| lr4444lr wrote:
| IIRC, FOIA does not grant you a right to personal information
| collected on citizens. The agencies have the right to redact
| that in whole or in part from the records sought. I don't deny
| your main concern about left wing issues potentially derailing
| the ACLU's chief mission, but that isn't the example I'd cite.
| giantg2 wrote:
| You are correct. However, the request did not request
| personal information and only aggregate counts.
| thrwy_ywrht wrote:
| > some female prisoners in Washington state wanted to know how
| many male prisoners had been transferred to women's prisons
|
| This is such an incredibly bad-faith and transphobic
| representation of the case that I can only conclude you are
| intentionally trolling. Even if you believe that trans women
| should not be housed in prisons with cis women, it is beyond
| bad faith choose the words you chose to use.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| I'm not following you at all. From the text of the request,
| the petitioners want to know: "Number of inmates that have
| been transferred from a men's facility to a women's facility
| since January 01, 2021" This is almost identical to what I
| wrote.
|
| I would appreciate it if you would explain to me and others
| what part of my _argument_ you disagree with rather than
| simply saying "incredibly bad-faith" "transphobic" "you are
| trolling" "beyond bad faith" without _any_ explanation of
| what you think I did wrong or would prefer I do differently.
|
| For what it's worth, I think you are acting in bad faith by
| calling me names and speculating unkindly about my motives
| without actually explaining what assertion or argument you
| object to and why. What you're doing is just bullying.
| pessimizer wrote:
| It's wrong to say "male." You're supposed to come up with
| some euphemism, like "bedicked." Literally nothing to do
| with the content of the argument; you're supposed to
| concede the ground before you step onto it.
| cluedos wrote:
| Exactly this. Even using the phrase 'trans woman' is a
| concession, implying that these men are a subcategory of
| women, rather than of men. And that it's possible to
| 'trans' into this category.
|
| (This is why in radical feminist circles, they are
| typically referred to as 'trans-identifying males'
| instead.)
| prepend wrote:
| While I really prefer the term "bedicked," what is the
| term for people with penises regardless of gender? Is
| there a term that won't result in someone being called a
| transphobe?
|
| I've heard the term "sex assigned at birth" but that's
| not accurate in this situation because I'm interested in
| people with penises and if someone was born male and had
| their penis removed surgically I wouldn't want them
| included in my population of interest.
| lesstenseflow wrote:
| > what is the term for people with penises regardless of
| gender? Is there a term that won't result in someone
| being called a transphobe?
|
| No, there is no universally accepted term that won't get
| you called a transphobe by anyone (correct me if I'm
| wrong). If terms of the discussion are set by the most
| extreme genderist views, it's becomes literally
| impossible to discuss things like male violence against
| women or sexism in the workplace, because there's no
| permissible language to describe the groups involved.
|
| I just go with "male" and "female" which are objective,
| observable facts. If people object to these terms, they
| are really objecting to having a discussion at all.
|
| > "sex assigned at birth"
|
| Sex is not "assigned" at birth it is observed, frequently
| well before birth via ultrasound or some other
| technology. Midwives and doctors don't go round flipping
| coins that say "boy" on one side and "girl" on the other,
| this whole concept of "assigned" sex is silly.
| cluedos wrote:
| How so? 'Trans women' are male, by definition.
| giantg2 wrote:
| "Why the government would want to keep this secret is a good
| question"
|
| That's an easy one - they always hide anything that could be
| controversial. This is definitely a hot topic in recent years.
|
| "did people donating to the ACLU realize their money is being
| used to fight private citizen information requests & defend
| government secrecy?"
|
| Due to the scope of the ACLU's actions and the variability of
| its members personal beliefs, it's almost guaranteed that they
| engage in things that some member disagree with.
|
| Edit: why disagree?
| mudil wrote:
| The ACLU lost its legitimacy when it stopped defending the civil
| liberties of people they don't agree with.
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