Advocating that the Jews should be removed from the planet may not qualify as illegal advocacy for violence, but it’s still advocacy for violence, in my view. It’s reasonable to suggest that maybe limited resources to fight for free speech should be directed elsewhere other than defending those who advocate that the Jews be removed from the planet.
Do you disagree with either sentence?
Can we just remind ourselves here that AFAICT, we have seen exactly one sentence alleged to be actually quoted from the alleged “open letter” from these ACLU staffers in the only article claiming to be based on actual access to the letter?
Everything else that has been claimed about these ACLU staffers’ opinions is just second-hand speculative blather. We don’t know exactly what they think the ACLU should be doing differently, and we don’t know how they explain or justify their views. So maybe ease up on the rate of manufacturing exaggerated strawman arguments to ascribe to them until we have more information about what they actually said.
Well, elsewhere is certainly where I’d personally prefer to spend my money in this instance. However, I’m left with the same question that I asked in my response to MrDibble upthread: Why should we assume that allocating our civil-liberties defense resources to explicitly exclude certain groups will not adversely affect our ability to defend the civil liberties of other groups?
Even if I agreed in principle that one could make a consistent case for limiting free-speech rights to exclude the free expression of Nazi ideology and other hate-speech ideas, I’d want to see some damn good evidence that such limitations wouldn’t change the courts’ reception of ACLU arguments in favor of free speech for non-Nazis.
Those are also reasonable questions, and I don’t know all the answers. I’m not really convinced either way on this, but I think it’s an important conversation to have.
It really seems to come down to a few things: how prevalent and accepted racism (to take one shade of the debate) is in American society, how much power it has, and whether advocating Nazi beliefs leads directly to violent action.
Everybody admits there are lines (Christian Scientists have, IIRC, been successfully prosecuted for following their sincerely held religious beliefs). Where those lines lie for you greatly depend on your life experiences, I think.
As with gun control and health care, when people feel their lives are being directly threatened, you aren’t going to persuade then with “you’re just being silly; there’s no problem here”. It’s possible, but again as with gun control and health care, you’re going to need to have a damn good reason to decide their fear doesn’t matter, or to look that person in the eye and say “your life is a sacrifice that must be paid to serve the greater good of general rights for all” if you’re going to calm them down.
Same. I agree.
As I understand it, the ACLU’s decision is not that they will pick and choose whose free speech to defend, but that they will not defend groups with a history of violence, groups that promote hate speech and glorify violence, groupos that come to the parade armed to the teeth hoiping for trouble.
Where I’m flexible on it (although I’m not very, and I guess that shows) is that access to loud expensive reaches-the-public “free” speech isn’t free, and therefore access isn’t equal. I don’t know where, exactly, I would draw the line but somewhere between shouting “Lynch the President! Follow me!” (or “Lynch the wicked abortionist! Follow me!” for that matter) on the one hand and “I think the practitioners of the evil religion Christianity are an abomination in the eyes of God and should be barred from voting, owning property, being outdoors where people have to see them, and, especially, reproducing their foul kind”. (or insert some other group identity and express the same sentiment) on the other. The former is a direct incitement to do violence and I don’t think free speech should encompass it as legal, whereas the latter is a horrid sentiment but if I were something akin to a Supreme Court justice and were ruling on the matter I’d say free speech covers it because it urges within-the-system action, however horrid I find it, against a group of people.
Your mileage may vary a bit.
As a Jew and an ACLU member, I am happy to have my membership dues helping to protect the rights of Nazis.
What a silly thread. You accuse people, some of whom have dedicated their professional lives to defending free speech and the ACLU, of trying to destroy it—without having the least clue exactly what they said or what they are asking for.
I promise you that the vast majority of the people who signed that letter know more than the OP about what it actually means to fight for and preserve our liberties.
Has anyone found a link to the actual letter yet? Seems like we are debating (or pissing and moaning about) something that none of us has actually seen.
It hasn’t been made public. The only people who have seen it are folks on ACLU list serves and the reporter to whom it was leaked.
I will come back and respond to individual posts later, when I have a bit more time. For right now, I want to urge everyone (especially those sympathetic with the 200 ACLU staffers’ objections) to read these excerpts from the SCOTUS opinion W. Virginia v. Barnette:
Mansplaining Barnette to the ACLU is just chef kisses fingers
What objections? As has been pointed out repeatedly, we don’t actually know what these staffers’ objections are, except for the one sentence that was quoted in the original article.
By the way, SlackerInc, how long have you been a member of our “invaluable organization”? :dubious:
Which, as I said before, makes the descriptor “open letter” for this document kind of questionable. An open letter is usually one that is published, you know, openly.
Open in the sense of made available to disgruntled National board members like Meyers despite being neither sender nor recipient.
AKA “passed around and gossiped about”.
Certainly, there’s no reason we can’t debate specific stances on ACLU policy even without knowing which ACLU staffers, if any, agree with which positions. But all the concern trolling about how hyper-leftist SJW borers-from-within are destroying the ACLU’s noble mission really needs to wait for some more facts.
(Apparently Google doesn’t recognize the phrase “borers from within” unless you put it in quotes, which somehow makes me feel old. Not that I was around for the origins of the phrase in the first Red Scare, but I kind of took it for granted that it was still a recognized expression, you know?)
I agree as well, with some reservations, but with the certainty that some groups are going to push the limits of free speech into areas which strain the sensibilities of its greatest defenders. That is not the ACLU’s fault.
I like it when the bigots expose themselves for who they really are. As the saying goes, “sunlight is the best disinfectant”.
BigT, this is absolutely, 100% batshit.
Hm, a perspective I hadn’t considered: it seems that some of the really leftist people out there think the “sunlight is the best disinfectant” and “counter speech with more speech” ideals have FAILED, apparently because of a generally conservative and corporate controlled media that normalizes advocating genocide for money.
Does the state of the media play into the discussion? After all, we hear complaints about Fox News and Breitbart all the time, not to mention that conservative leaning media company whose name I’ve forgotten buying up all the local news stations, and the polarization of the Internet. Could it be possible that today’s media landscape makes the right approach different, or at least more difficult? I’m not sure.
The point I’m making is that the distinction between whether some verbal articulation is protected or not protected is a distinction that, in theory, can be changed with a stroke of the pen. So when you go on about how all constitutionally protected speech should be treated equally, I’m making a rather obvious point that the meaning of the phrase isn’t exactly ironclad.
Corporations are under fairly serious pressure not just to make profits and avoid harm, but also make socially responsible change that doesn’t necessarily relate to their core missions. As I said before, just because he ACLU makes lots of contributions to our society in areas X, Y, and Z, doesn’t mean they should automatically get a free pass if their actions in area K end up causing harm to issue A.
You aren’t arguing a centrist position. And you’re kind of a dick to think that someone like me who thinks this question ought to be taken seriously, and not just dismissed because you already have an opinion on it, isn’t thinking clearly.
I guess everyone has their sacred cows.
And you smell good compared to that flower that reeks of rotting flesh.
So what? I agree with the outcome of that case, and think that the precedent it overturns was ghastly.