The implication that those that oppose the group’s agenda oppose civil liberties. The ACLU defines civil liberties in terms favorable to a political viewpoint that they follow.
Again, nothing really wrong with that - everyone does it. But we ought to recognize it for what it is.
Is there some other defensible definition? (The word “defensible” is included to expressly rule out the Libertarian Party’s.)
Then find examples of what it is we should recognize, and don’t just finger conservative boogiemen. The focus of the American Civil Liberties Union is American civil liberties. There’s nothing value laden in what they do, and that is why they take on cases that feel good and cases that don’t feel good (like Illinois Nazis, for example).
Civil liberties means something specific. It isn’t at all like “Freedom Watch” or “the American Way” or the “Patriot Act,” or actually opposite of what they do, like the “Clean Skies Initiative.”
Referring to the ACLU as you have simply makes it appear that you are ignorant of what civil liberties are or what the ACLU does or both.
The ACLUWCLBDVMSUAUD* doesn’t really flow of the tongue as well. The name ACLU at least is an honest attempt to explain succinctly what the group is about, even if you may disagree that in every case they are correct in the interpretation of what counts as a civil liberty. On the other hand, names like Freedom Patrol and whatnot aren’t really informative in any way.
*The American Civil Liberties Union With Civil Liberties Being Defined by the Views of the Members and not by Some Universally Agreed Upon Definition
Okay. Point taken. But what I said about PFAW still stands, and there are other liberal (and conservative) groups that similarly play that game. Again, no problem, but it is a weird thing to complain about.
Ultimately, the Haight and the hippie movement deteriorated from love and flowers into drugs and crime, drawing a fringe of crazies like Charles Manson and leaving a legacy of sex, drugs, violence, and consumerism. As early as October 1967, the “Diggers,” who had opened a free shop and soup kitchen in the Haight, symbolically buried the dream in a clay casket in Buena Vista Park.
For the purists, “Hippiedom” appears to have arisen, waned and died in the period 1965-1967. Once elements of commercialism set in, it was claimed that the Hippie ethos as such was destroyed.
I don’t think he was saying WTF, but rather making a joke of my point about not being able to trust anyone over 30.
I didn’t even know about the hippie funeral thing until recently-- there are lot of Sumer of Love news articles and TV specials celebrating the 40th anniversary this year. One on PBS was especially good (no shocker, there). I was just starting Jr High at the time, and it was rather crazy. Something was definitely in the air (literally and figuratively).
Puppy! Get off my lawn!
I thought I was a year older than you, but maybe my memory is faulty. That happens with old age…
1956 for me.
I was there, but I went to sneer. Even as my conservatism and Objectivism were tottering, undermined by such as Paul Krassner (may the Good Lord bless him and keep him all the days of his life…), I went to preen my wordly skepticism, to laugh at the beatniks. But they weren’t beatniks, they were bright, and colorful, and cheerful. And, to an astonishing degree, grad students in their late twenties. When I opened up my vast arsenal of sophomoric wisdom, they laughed, and then…I laughed with them. And once I laughed at me, I was no longer me.
They were on to something, something new, chaotic and colorful in an America gone drab, grey and greedy. The air was crisp with energy, Something Was Happening.
I took the left turn at Albequerque, on the road to Damascus…
It’s not often that I read something around here that makes me feel young. Thanks. 
I gotta work on that memory thing, though. I’ll do that tomorrow-- if I remember.
The trick, John, is to die young as old as you can get.
The trick, John, is to die young as old as you can get.
Hmmm? Mixing Bugs Bunny and St. Paul?
Yep. That sounds pretty sound.
-samclem, 1944, and can tell lucy to get off my lawn!.
Well, I’m not the oldest, but I bet my beard is pretty close to the longest, and my hair too.
I remember looking out onto the party on the Mall, during the November War Moratorium March, and commenting to a good friend, “Look, they just had the revolution. And it was on television! Looks like we lost.”
In America, war ain’t gonna study YOU you no more.