Does the ACLU Any Longer Defend Civil Liberty?

[shakey1]

Does the ACLU Any Longer Defend Civil Liberty?

Paul Craig Roberts

There are many signs of American collapse. One of the most scary is the fact that the American Civil Liberties Union no longer knows what are the civil liberties it purports to defend. Identity Politics has transformed civil rights into privileges for victim groups.

Yesterday (February 22, 2018) I received a 50-state survey from the ACLU. The envelope in which the questionnaire arrived said the survey was about how “to protect civil liberties during the Trump Presidency.” However, the survey (essentially a fundraiser) did not mention a single civil liberty contained in the Bill of Rights and added as amendments to the US Constitution.

Nothing about the sweeping away by the criminal Bush regime of habeas corpus with indefinite detention. No mention of the criminal Obama regime’s kill list, which swept away due process by executing US citizens on allegation alone without trial, evidence, and conviction. Nothing about the sweeping away by both criminal regimes of the prohibition against spying on citizens without warrants. No mention of the shutdown of free speech and protest or of the destruction of civil liberties by unaccountable police who brutalize, rob, and murder Americans at will.

In place of civil liberties, the ACLU has Identity Politics. The ACLU “civil rights” survey is concerned with the civil rights of illegal aliens, of women to have abortions and publicly financed birth control, the “fundamental rights of LGBT people,” and Muslim bans. The civil liberties listed in the Constitution do not qualify for concern; only invented rights that are not listed in the Bill of Rights.

The letter accompanying the questionnaire does mention the First Amendment and suppression of free speech “emanating from the White House.” I mean, really, the Bush and Obama regimes decimated free speech and imprisoned whistleblowers. Julian Assange has been imprisoned for years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for publishing leaked material revealing criminal and deceitful behavior of the US government. By the time of Trump’s election, the First Amendment was a dead letter civil right.

In the ACLU’s Identity Politics, white people, especially white heterosexual males, have no rights. They are not protected by quotas, political correctness, or hate speech prohibitions. No one has to worry about offending a white by destroying statues of white males or church plaques commemorating George Washington and Robert E. Lee. Try destroying a statue of Martin Luther King. A white person can be called every name in the book, and is. White DNA is said to be an abomination. Anyone who said black DNA or homosexual DNA was an abomination would face hate crime charges.

Even men-hating white feminists jump on the anti-white bandwagon, denouncing white heterosexual–not homosexual–males as misogynist. The feminists reserve their hate for the men attracted to women.

War is the greatest destroyer of civil liberty. Indefinite detention, execution without due process, spying without warrants, suppression of the First Amendment are all consequences of the use of 9/11 to put the US on a war basis. The replacement of civil liberty with a police state is said to be necessary in order to protect us from Muslim terrorists, expanded to include undefined “domestic extremists.” Currently the US is being put on an even greater war basis with Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, and even Venezuela declared as threats to America.

The ACLU shares responsibility for the explosion of the threat level from al Qaeda to every country that “threatens” America by having its own independent foreign policy and insisting on its sovereignty. It was Trump who said he was going to normalize relations with Russia, and it was the ACLU and the entirety of the liberal/progressive/left who jumped on the anti-Trump bandwagon and went after him with the orchestrated conspiracy of Russiagate. What the liberal/progressive/left did was to drive Trump into the arms of the military/security complex.

Clearly, the liberal/progressive/left and the ACLU are a greater menace to the Bill of Rights than Donald Trump.

https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/201...civil-liberty/

[EBounding]

Like the NRA, I think the ACLU is a net positive.

[fedupinmo]

Like the NRA, I think the ACLU is a net positive.

I disagree. The ACLU does more to destroy liberty than save any. Gun rights? Religious expression and rights of conscience? Equal protection under the law? What is more important?

[acptulsa]

Like the NRA, I think the ACLU is a net positive.

It used to be. But the farther off the deep end the liberals go, the farther it goes too. They don't seem to have time for, say, constitutional rights any more.

As late as the Dubya Administration, the ACLU was still doing important stuff. Don't see any signs of it any more.

[donnay]

They haven't for a very long time.

[Superfluous Man]

I just saw this last night. It's better than nothing.


Also, I was confused by part of the OP. I get how promoting tax payer funded abortion is in no way supporting civil liberties. But "the civil rights of illegal aliens, ... the fundamental rights of LGBT people, and Muslim bans," all seem within the purview of an organization that promotes civil liberties. I don't get how Roberts can think otherwise.

[Ender]

I just saw this last night. It's better than nothing.


Also, I was confused by part of the OP. I get how promoting tax payer funded abortion is in no way supporting civil liberties. But "the civil rights of illegal aliens, ... the fundamental rights of LGBT people, and Muslim bans," all seem within the purview of an organization that promotes civil liberties. I don't get how Roberts can think otherwise.

I've had some good experiences with the ACLU in terms of religious freedom.

Do I agree with them on everything? No- but again, my personal experience has been positive.