Good day all The American Civil Liberties Union, or ACLU, has a long and storied history of supporting only those parts of the Constitution they actually like. They have consistently refused to support the 2nd Amendment for instance.
However, they have always been rather militant with regards to the 1st Amendment. It looks like that is about to change. According to a leaked memo, it appears the ACLU is “wavering” on supporting the right of free speech. Here are some of the details from Reason:
The American Civil Liberties Union will weigh its interest in protecting the First Amendment against its other commitments to social justice, racial equality, and women’s rights, given the possibility that offensive speech might undermine ACLU goals.
“Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed,” wrote ACLU staffers in a confidential memo obtained by former board member Wendy Kaminer.
I’m not actually surprised that the American UnCivil NoLiberties Union is now throwing the 1st Amendment under the bus. The history of this organization goes back to the early days of Communism. The ACLU was originally designed to use America’s own Constitution against it in order to bring about the “Utopian Socialist State” that all progressives dream of ruling over. Reason is having none of this crap from the ACLU.
It’s hard to see this as anything other than a cowardly retreat from a full-throated defense of the First Amendment. Moving forward, when deciding whether to take a free speech case, the organization will consider “factors such as the (present and historical) context of the proposed speech; the potential effect on marginalized communities; the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values; and the structural and power inequalities in the community in which the speech will occur.”
This basically puts an end to any use for the ACLU. They have always been militant, perhaps a bit to much, with regards to supporting free speech. There was a time when scumbag Nazi’s, real ones, wanted to march in protest through a town called Skokie, Illinois. This town was home to a large Jewish population including survivors from the Nazi death camps.
As I recall, the town refused a permit and the ACLU sided with the Nazis and forced the town to issue the parade permit. One of the reasons the town wanted to prevent the march was actual concerns over the safety of the scumbag Nazis. After all, the only good Nazi is a dead one and there was a real risk that someone would try and make a lot of good Nazis. Other then counter-protests, there was no violence. It looks like the Progressive totalitarians running the ACLU have decided that free speech is less important then protecting someone’s feelings.
The memo also makes clear that the ACLU has zero interest in defending First Amendment rights in conjunction with Second Amendment rights. If controversial speakers intend to carry weapons, the ACLU “will generally not represent them.”
No surprise there. An armed population tends to not like having their rights taken away by the Progressives, and having the means to do so is not, in the opinion of the ever so progressive ACLU, a good thing.
The memo’s authors assert that this does not amount to a formal change in policy, and is merely intended as guidelines that will assist ACLU affiliates in deciding which cases to take.
It seems fairly clear to me, (Robby Soave, writer of the Reason piece), what’s happening here. Leadership would probably like the ACLU to remain a pro-First Amendment organization, but they would also like to remain in good standing with their progressive allies.
Unfortunately, young progressives are increasingly hostile to free speech, which they view as synonymous with racist hate speech. Speech that impugns marginalized persons is not speech at all, in their view, but violence.
This is why a student Black Lives Matter group shut down an ACLU event at the College of William & Mary last year, chanting “liberalism is white supremacy” and “the revolution will not uphold the Constitution.” Campus activism is illiberal, and liberal free speech norms conflict with the broad protection of emotional comfort that the young, modern left demands.
And that is why I am afraid we are heading to a full blown civil war. Of course, the BLM thugs are correct that Liberalism is just another way for the Democrats to reinstate slavery. However, the very fact these morons hate the Constitution and have no understanding of it indicates that they too, have no problem with the 13th Amendment being repealed as well. But then, they are both stupid and totalitarians.
The ACLU’s capitulation to the anti-speech left should serve as a wake up call for true liberals. What has taken place on campus over the last decade does matter, and though the scope of the problem is frequently overstated, we should all be concerned when the nation’s premiere civil liberties organization is increasingly afraid of defending the First Amendment—not because the Trump administration scares them, but because college students do.
Progressives are herd creatures. They are not capable of acting as individuals, only in a group. They have no identity other then as part of a group. This includes the collage administrations that, rather then dealing with these thugs in a hard and fast manner, roll over and beg for forgiveness. The ACLU has just ended any relevance they once had. I have no doubt that their donors, for the most part, will continue to give these losers money. It makes them “Feel good” and we all know, to the sheeple of the left, feelz is all that is important.
Thatisall
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