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.
I give money every month and will continue to do so. Here's the whole document. guidelines do not seek to resolve the conflicts, because resolution will virtually always turn on factors specific to each case. Nor do they change ACLU policy, which is set by the Board. Rather, consistent with Board policy, they attempt to identify the kinds of questions that ought to be considered, the processes for their consideration, and the measures that can help mitigate the harms to competing interests. Wendy Kaminer was kicked out of the ACLU about ten years ago and is still salty. Her sole income at this point is railing against the ACLU for various conservative groups. Back when the ACLU was defending the KKK, nobody else was. Now? now the president is saying there are bad people on all sides. Nothing in this memo says that people aren't allowed free speech - it says that some people are more convenient to give free legal representation to. I'm 100% cool with that. PS. Stay off Reddit.The
It's more important to attack their speech than their right to speech. Drawing their ideas into the open allows for dismantling them publicly and eroding their support.
That's my point. If you value the principle of free speech, it doesn't mean you automatically value every kind of speech. You may argue for free speech but against the hate speech already spoken. So, why aren't ACLU doing it? From what limited overview I have as a non-American, the ACLU is one of the big names in what I will broadly call "support for democracy". This seems like a worse move than they could have made.