by francopoli

Archive link due to this being paywalled everyway I got to it otherwise.

I used to give a lot of money to the ACLU. I no longer give any money to the ACLU. IF I had not stopped giving them money earlier this year this opinion piece would be the end.

The 2018 guidelines claim that “the ACLU is committed to defending speech rights without regard to whether the views expressed are consistent with or opposed to the ACLU’s core values, priorities and goals.” But directly contradicting that assertion, they also cite as a reason to decline taking a free-speech case “the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values.”

You mother fuckers defended the rights of white nationalists to organize and protest. LAST FUCKING YEAR And I agree with this, by the way. Once you tell one group they have no right to speech, it is only a matter of time until your political enemy is in charge and silences you. You fought for the KKK in 1969, a correct decision in my mind. Even though these fuckers were burning Catholic churches and killing Catholic priests, you defended them. And Catholics were once the biggest source of donations to the ACLU, one of the reasons the KKK singled the ACLU out for terror attacks. Now you play the "but muh feelings" card?

The Westboro Baptist people have a right to protest. The hundreds that show up and counter-protest have a right to show up. The people who mock them, laugh at them and turned the WBC into a punchline, the people who stopped their antics, they also have that right. You end hate speech with more speech... and laughter, mockery, jokes and shitposts. The WBC is dead as an organization. The counter protestors making fun of them is why people started leaving the church.

When you start silencing people, you drive them into the shadows and the toxic cancers metastasize and become violent. Germany has a NAZI problem because the groups were driven underground and formed brotherhoods who bonded over hiding from the law. The KKK is all but dead because they are allowed to be proud and open so that we know who they are and can laugh at them. Atheists are winning because blasphemy laws are illegal.

This change is the death of the organization in my mind. Give money to people who fight for our values, like the EFF. Fuck the ACLU.