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Thread: ACLU about to cave in to SJW over defending 1st Amendment and free speech

  1. #1

    Exclamation ACLU about to cave in to SJW over defending 1st Amendment and free speech

    Leaked Internal Memo Reveals the ACLU Is Wavering on Free Speech

    http://reason.com/blog/2018/06/21/ac...mo-free-speech

    "Our defense of speech may have a greater or lesser harmful impact on the equality and justice work to which we are also committed."

    Robby Soave|Jun. 21, 2018 8:25 am

    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.

    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."

    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."

    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.

    Kaminer, though, sees the memo as yet more evidence that the ACLU "has already lost its zeal for vigorously defending the speech it hates." As she writes in The Wall Street Journal:

    The speech-case guidelines reflect a demotion of free speech in the ACLU's hierarchy of values. Their vague references to the "serious harm" to "marginalized" people occasioned by speech can easily include the presumed psychological effects of racist or otherwise hateful speech, which is constitutionally protected but contrary to ACLU values. Faced with perceived conflicts between freedom of speech and "progress toward equality," the ACLU is likely to choose equality. If the Supreme Court adopted the ACLU's balancing test, it would greatly expand government power to restrict speech.

    In Brandenburg v. Ohio (1969), for example, the ACLU defended the First Amendment rights of a Ku Klux Klan leader prosecuted for addressing a small rally and calling for "revengence" against blacks and Jews. The U.S. Supreme Court reversed Clarence Brandenburg's conviction, narrowly defining incitement to violence as speech both intended and likely to cause imminent illegal action. Brandenburg made an essential distinction between advocacy and action, which progressives who equate hate speech with actual discrimination or violence seek to erase.

    The ACLU would be hard pressed to take Brandenburg's case today, given its new guidelines. The organization hasn't yet endorsed a ban on hate speech, or a broader definition of incitement. The guidelines affirm that "speakers have a right to advocate violence." But even if Brandenburg managed to pass the new balancing test for speech cases, some participants at his rally were armed, and, according to the guidelines, "the ACLU generally will not represent protesters who seek to march while armed."

    Kaminer notes that the ACLU is of course free to change its position on free speech—but it should own up to this evolution:

    All this is the ACLU's prerogative. Organizations are entitled to revise their values and missions. But they ought to do so openly. The ACLU leadership had apparently hoped to keep its new guidelines secret, even from ACLU members. They're contained in an internal document deceptively marked, in all caps, "confidential attorney client work product." I'm told it was distributed to select ACLU officials and board members, who were instructed not to share it. According to my source, the leadership is now investigating the "leak" of its new case-selection guidelines. President Trump might sympathize.

    It seems fairly clear to me 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.

    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.
    Another mark of a tyrant is that he likes foreigners better than citizens, and lives with them and invites them to his table; for the one are enemies, but the Others enter into no rivalry with him. - Aristotle's Politics Book 5 Part 11



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  3. #2
    In the past, I would -- at least partially -- defend the ACLU from fellow right-wingers who would criticize them. This was, after all, the organization that defended Hoppe's free speech after he said that gays have higher time preference than straights. They believed in wacky things, but the organization (or at least some chapters) deserved respect. Those days might be coming to a close.
    NeoReactionary. American High Tory.

    The counter-revolution will not be televised.

  4. #3
    They were always the American Communist Lawyers Union, now they think they can drop the mask, any good work they did in the past was camouflage.

    Ender will appear in this thread shortly to defend them, after his defense of the Pope and the Jesuits La Raza will probably be next.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  5. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    They were always the American Communist Lawyers Union
    They defended the American Nazi Party's right to march in Skokie, hardly something a Commies group would do.
    We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
    Erwin N. Griswold

    Taxes: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an automatic extension.
    Anonymous

  6. #5
    Quote Originally Posted by Sonny Tufts View Post
    They defended the American Nazi Party's right to march in Skokie, hardly something a Commies group would do.

    No, a commie would never defend a socialist...

    They do like to divide and conquer.
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  7. #6
    Quote Originally Posted by Sonny Tufts View Post
    They defended the American Nazi Party's right to march in Skokie, hardly something a Commies group would do.
    Sure, Communists would never want to promote NAZIs and then accuse anyone of opposing them of being NAZIs.
    Would you like to buy my oceanfront property in Arizona?
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  8. #7
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    They were always the American Communist Lawyers Union, now they think they can drop the mask, any good work they did in the past was camouflage.

    Ender will appear in this thread shortly to defend them, after his defense of the Pope and the Jesuits La Raza will probably be next.
    ACLU was always driving a not so hidden agenda.

  9. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    Sure, Communists would never want to promote NAZIs and then accuse anyone of opposing them of being NAZIs.
    So you think that supporting the right of someone to march free of government interference automatically means that you support the marcher's message?
    We have long had death and taxes as the two standards of inevitability. But there are those who believe that death is the preferable of the two. "At least," as one man said, "there's one advantage about death; it doesn't get worse every time Congress meets."
    Erwin N. Griswold

    Taxes: Of life's two certainties, the only one for which you can get an automatic extension.
    Anonymous



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  11. #9
    Quote Originally Posted by Sonny Tufts View Post
    So you think that supporting the right of someone to march free of government interference automatically means that you support the marcher's message?
    Not always, but it serves their purpose, what is conspicuous is their refusal to defend ordinary conservatives and Christians at strategic times, the few times they have it was just for camouflage.
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment

  12. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Swordsmyth View Post
    They were always the American Communist Lawyers Union, now they think they can drop the mask, any good work they did in the past was camouflage.

    Ender will appear in this thread shortly to defend them, after his defense of the Pope and the Jesuits La Raza will probably be next.
    Quote Originally Posted by Sonny Tufts View Post
    So you think that supporting the right of someone to march free of government interference automatically means that you support the marcher's message?

    The ACLU’s chief founders were communists and communist sympathizers, including top Communist Party officials William Z. Foster, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Louis Budenz. Roger N. Baldwin, another of the co-founders (and the ACLU’s executive director from 1920-1950) may not have been an official card-carrying CPUSA member, but he was a willing collaborator. He wrote:


    I am for socialism.... I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.... I don’t regret being part of the communist tactic. I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the communists wanted and I traveled the United Front road to get it.


    Despite utilizing more moderate rhetoric than many of their earlier Bolsheviki forebears, the NLG and the ACLU have not swerved from their leftward course. Neither have they deviated from Comintern plan for exploiting immigration and migration issues to batter down our borders and transform the United States into a mere cog in a global socialist system. But don’t expect any of the fake journalists of the Fake News organizations to mention any of this.

    More at: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...-ice-agitation
    Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.

    Robert Heinlein

    Give a man an inch and right away he thinks he's a ruler

    Groucho Marx

    I love mankind…it’s people I can’t stand.

    Linus, from the Peanuts comic

    You cannot have liberty without morality and morality without faith

    Alexis de Torqueville

    Those who fail to learn from the past are condemned to repeat it.
    Those who learn from the past are condemned to watch everybody else repeat it

    A Zero Hedge comment



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