Carefully, young grassshopa. First you must know the way of the republican. Liberals and their allies are always wrong. From that follows everything, including the ability to make words and phrases applies only to those you wish them to apply to.
Good list, What the.
I’m an atheist, and I was shaking my head at the stupidity of most of those instances of ACLU action.
It sucks that the ACLU has to force secularism down peoples throats as your list shows. This just serves to alienate us who are non-believers even more. The ultimate irony is that even more religion ends up being shoved down my throat because they rightly feel threatened by these attacks on their beliefs.
It’s every bit as true as your label for the ACLU, as any reasonable person can realize.
So, I can call George Bush anti-American for starting the war in Iraq? That involved putting quite a few US soldiers and citizens in harms way for no good reason, as far as I care. Sure you say you have good reasons. But why should I pay any more attention to your reasons for going to war in Iraq, than you have paid to the reasons for publishing the photos of torture victims?
The word “citizen” doesn’t even appear in the Bill of Rights. It’s disturbing that you would say they only apply to citizens.
Obviously, the rules of war are different, but the ACLU isn’t talking about requiring warrants for soldiers, they’re talking about releasing information. It’s an issue of free speech.
I’m not a Republican.
Did I say you were? 
Well, What the ?!?, I refuse to believe that any of those headlines from your last post are accurate representations of what the ACLU is doing until you provide links to the headlines in question. At this point in the thread you have made many slanderous accusations against the ACLU. When asked to proof your accusations, you simply ignored the requests. When a newbie acts like that, their credibility tends to drop like a rock, as it were. (I will mention, while we’re at it, that choosing a respectable username does wonders as well.)
Good day.
Who do you think the founders were talking about when they said “people”? They obviously meant citizens.
That was my point. If we grant the people who are trying to kill us the same rights that we have as citizens then we don’t stand a chance. Also, I don’t think it’s so obvious at all. Many people seem to make the argument that we should be giving rights to them just as we would to any US citizen.
Ah, but you’ve already admitted that the rules of war are different. If we don’t need to require warrants, why should we be required to release information? Do we need to release information on troop movements as well? How about plans for future attacks?
You are drawing an arbitrary line in the sand, and stating it as if everyone should agree with where you’ve placed it.
No. It’s not.
Who’s speech is being blocked? The government classifies information all the time, and it’s not a free speech issue.
It’s amazing that people can see no free speech issues with McCain Feingold and instead see first ammendment issues in the release of valueless, harmful photos.
That’s bullshit, of course. All these things are about not having the government endorse a particular religion. Do you have any examples of the ACLU objecting to a sign on a church? That could well be offensive, but is protected.
I think I might join the ACLU after this to help protect the country from you incipient theocrats.
Let’s look at a few examples.
What exactly does the 23rd Psalm have to do with law? Is it referred to by the Constitution?
And your problem with this is? These people are servants of the people, all the people, and not just Christians. They can make an effort to act that way.
Do you actually object to this? Should a Hindu have to swear on a Holy Bible? Does doing so make it okay for him to lie? I can’t believe they don’t do this already. In California, when I got sworn in for jury duty, we swore to the state, as appropriate, not to any gods.
Have you even bothered to read the glurge you cut and pasted?
You are aware, right, that the issue with abstinence only sex education is the only part. I don’t know of anyone proposing not to say that abstinence is best. What they want to add is education about disease prevention and birth control methods just in case. The free speech part is the government saying that schools cannot give out this information. Get it now? You might have a case (but probably not) if abstinence only education was shown to be effective, but it isn’t. More pregnancies -> more abortions. Are you pro-abortion? I’m pro-choice, but feel abortions should be a last resort, and good birth control the first.
First off, could you provide link(s)? Gah, that list has to be in one of the most unreadable, resistant to response formats you could choose. Thanks.
Now, a comment on the ones I did make it through. You do realize it has nothing to do with “freedom to not be offended by somebody else’s religion”, don’t you? I think you’ve overdosed on The O’Reilly Factor. Step away from the glurge and hopefully no one else will get hurt.
As an exercise to prove that a response isn’t a total waste of my time, I’ll leave it to you to identify the overriding concern in these cases.
Although I have to admit, I’m intrigued by this:
I’d really like to read about that one.
Oh, and – hey Voyager. Glad to see you back.
Then why didn’t they say, “citizens?” Incidentally, do you think that a person living in the United States, but who retains their (let’s say) British citizenship, does not have the right to free speech? Freedom from unreasonable search and seizure? Freedom of religion? Can the government grab a French citizen residing in the US and lock him up without a trial?
‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean- neither more nor less.’
My, but it’s interesting where those headlines come from…
Link from reclaimamerica.org, a James Kennedy ministry. In other words, an organization whose sole purpose is to shove Christianity down the throats of every American and make them LIKE it! Highly suspect, in any case, and not exactly unbiased.
Okay, Google finally vomited up the digest page that all of these came from, rather than searching for the individual headlines pages… Reclaim America ACLU Stories Archive. 'Cause, y’know, they don’t have a major holy hard-on for that organization or anything.
What the…?!, cites as biased as this site are absolutely worthless as evidence of the “bad” that the ACLU does. Most of what’s listed here I (and many others) consider to be the “good” that the ACLU does.
True, but the cites are useful to those who want to paint the ACLU as simply against religion, when the audience is one that cannot see or does not want to see the distinction between “against religion” and “against religion in the government”.
. . . The kindest thing I can say about that is that the courts have never held any provision of the Bill of Rights to apply to U.S. citizens only. In fact, so far as I know, there are only two groups of legal rights or privileges of U.S. citizens that noncitizens do not have: Political participation (voting, holding office) and residence on U.S. soil.
For the record, I’m not very religious at all. But for some reason I sympathise with those Christians who do want to be able to say a prayer at graduation, etc.
I don’t defend those who want to force Christianity on anybody and I’ll grant you that they are out there,
Has the ACLU ever defended a Christian’s right to any religious action in any way related to a public event? I know that sounds way too general but you probably know what I mean.
:dubious:
You know if you are curious about the ACLU you could check their website: www.aclu.org. Right up front of the middle page is a picture with the words Freedom, Belief and Religious Liberty. A few clicks later you get to this page with the following list:
December 22, 2004: ACLU of New Jersey successfully defends right of religious expression by jurors.
December 14, 2004: ACLU joins Pennsylvania parents in filing first-ever challenge to “Intelligent Design” instruction in public schools.
November 20, 2004: ACLU of Nevada supports free speech rights of evangelists to preach on the sidewalks of the strip in Las Vegas.
November 12, 2004: ACLU of Georgia files a lawsuit on behalf of parents challenging evolution disclaimers in science textbooks.
November 9, 2004: ACLU of Nevada defends a Mormon student who was suspended after wearing a T-shirt with a religious message to school.
August 11, 2004: ACLU of Nebraska defends church facing eviction by the city of Lincoln.
July 10, 2004: Indiana Civil Liberties Union defends the rights of a Baptist minister to preach his message on public streets.
June 9, 2004: ACLU of Nebraska files a lawsuit on behalf of a Muslim woman barred from a public pool because she refused to wear a swimsuit.
June 3, 2004: Under pressure from the ACLU of Virginia, officials agree not to prohibit baptisms on public property in Falmouth Waterside Park in Stafford County.
May 11, 2004: After ACLU of Michigan intervened on behalf of a Christian Valedictorian, a public high school agrees to stop censoring religious yearbook entries.
March 25, 2004: ACLU of Washington defends an Evangelical minister’s right to preach on sidewalks.
February 21, 2003: ACLU of Massachusetts defends students punished for distributing candy canes with religious messages.
October 28, 2002: ACLU of Pennsylvania files discrimination lawsuit over denial of zoning permit for African American Baptist church.
July 11, 2002: ACLU supports right of Iowa students to distribute Christian literature at school.
April 17, 2002: In a victory for the Rev. Jerry Falwell and the ACLU of Virginia, a federal judge strikes down a provision of the Virginia Constitution that bans religious organizations from incorporating.
January 18, 2002: ACLU defends Christian church’s right to run “anti-Santa” ads in Boston subways.
Thanks for the list. Truly. I’ll think twice before I’m so quick to judge them in the future.
I take exception to your claim that programs aren’t “creative output” (demos are a huge counterexample), and as for that hypothetical, I see no problem with it - as long as you don’t commit fraud by claiming your changes were written by McLaughlin and Kraus, or claiming you wrote the entire book yourself.