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The funny thing is the right is always so anti-ACLU, and yet the ACLU will defend the right's legal rights if they ever get violated, and have done that in the past. Just like the separation of church and state...they talk about that being a terrible thing, and yet religious freedom is better for it.
The ACLU is a broken organization for this very reason. They invest a great deal of their time and energy in trying to look nonpartisan by backing some of the most vile and irredeemable people in the country.
On the flip side, Democrats steer wide of the organization whenever it comes time to run candidates or appoint cabinet positions.
You'll never see the head of the ACLU appointed to the DOJ or granted a federal judgeship. No more than a regional leader of Planned Parenthood gets to run for Senate in a bright blue state. They aren't feeders to high office like the Federalist Society or the Heritage Foundation. All they are good for is fundraising from unhappy liberals.
The core premise of a right is that it applies regardless of who you are.
It's not "the right to free speech unless we don't like what you say", it's not "the right to due process unless the crime you're accused of is really bad", etc.
Protecting the rights of bad people equally with good ones is what they stand for. Rights aren't conditional.
Protecting the rights of bad people equally with good ones is what they stand for.
It isn't. When you're describing is a revisionist mission adopted by the New York branch in the 60s and 70s.
The original mission of the ACLU was the defense of labor agitators, picketers, and organizers - common targets for right wing hate groups.
This article from Jacobin goes into the transformation of the radical labor rights organizer to centrist Free Speech absolutist.
The mission has shifted from defending working people to bad people as the ACLU grew divorced from its labor roots.
If you can remove the rights of people you don't like, others can do the same to you.
If it's not universal it cannot be a right. They're mutually exclusive.
If you can remove the rights of people you don’t like, others can do the same to you
Except we remove these rights all the time, in large part because of the insidious bigotry that fanatics propagate. Defending the bigots does nothing to expand civil rights for the minorities they are marching to oppress.
FFS, the ACLU defended the Charleston tiki torch rioters. Whose interests did that serve?
If it’s not universal it cannot be a right.
Selective enforcement of civil rights is routine in the US. Hell, the same people crying about Campus Free Speech in 2022 ago were the ones calling for the heads of Palestine Solidarity protesters a year later.
Rights are rights for everyone, or they aren’t rights.
Rights have to be enforced. Enforcement is routinely selective and arbitrary, based on who is in power and who is enjoying a popular moment.
Yes, that’s what the ACLU does. Thank you for understanding. Now you know how you erred.
Yes, that’s what the ACLU does.
No, it isn't. The ACLU has extremely limited resources and is necessarily highly selective with its caseload. Prioritizing fascists acting fash-ly deprives civil and labor rights activists of desperately needed legal aid.
Sounds like the Dems are broken in this case for not pulling from the ACLU?