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The ACLU sometimes supports a worthy cause, but it's basically just a left-leaning political organization. I understand that's particularly trendy right now, an

The ACLU sometimes supports a worthy cause, but it's basically just a left-leaning political organization. I understand that's particularly trendy right now, and anyone who supports Trump is a pariah in Silicon Valley... but come on. Would YC be donating directly to the Democratic party if that got the same favorable tax treatment?

vermontdevil 10y ago
left-leaning? Supporting the Constitution is left-leaning? Sign me up! And yes they don't defend the 2nd amendment because there are already two large organizations focused on that.
- justin66 10y ago
  > And yes they don't defend the 2nd amendment because there are already two large organizations focused on that. I think it's accurate to say that the lawyers at ACLU have a position on the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment (viewable on their website) which is not consistent with the views commonly offered by the NRA. The ACLU would only go to court to help fight a 2nd Amendment violation where they believed one existed, so that's part of the difference.
  - monochromatic 10y ago
    It's also not consistent with binding caselaw offered by the Supreme Court. But whatever.
    - justin66 10y ago
      I'd argue that today neither organization has a view of the 2nd consistent with current case law, which is interesting. They're both advocacy organizations, among other things, so it isn't a shocking situation.
- monochromatic 10y ago
  They don't defend the 2nd amendment because they're left-leaning. Like I said.
gadders 10y ago
YC/Sam A hosted a fund raiser for the Democratic party/Obama [1] [1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/president-obama-will-headline-dnc-fundraiser-hosted-by-ycs-sam-altman-and-yahoos-marissa-mayer/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/president-obama-will-headl...
equalarrow 10y ago
How are your rights 'trendy'? I tend to stay out of politics, and don't really label people as such, but Trump is a bad guy. I'm happy to donate engineering time to the ACLU.
- sp332 10y ago
  "Trump is a bad guy". Well OK but the ACLU does more than just fight Trump. It's possible that people have mixed feelings about those various things.
- monochromatic 10y ago
  > Trump is a bad guy That's your political opinion. Half the country disagrees (or at least found him less-bad than the alternative).
  - jckt 10y ago
    Doesn't make him not a bad guy.
  - grzm 10y ago
    Trump (and Clinton) had record-breaking unfavorable ratings during the campaign. Your point about "less-bad" carries a lot of weight, in my opinion (and would have been the case regardless of who won the election). And step back and think of it: half think bad, half think good. Is that a situation you'd like to consider "not bad" in the grand scheme of things? Mediocre sounds like a fairer assessment, on average. And frankly I think we'd all prefer a solid "good" rather than an ambiguous "not bad".
  - adrienne 10y ago
    Less than one-quarter of the country, actually. Half the country didn't vote.
- A_Crazy_Idea 10y ago
  How is ACLU involved with my rights?
- lol214365 10y ago
AsyncAwait 10y ago
The ACLU tends to not pick political sides.
- JCzynski 10y ago
  This has been decreasingly true in recent years, in fairness. They've still been standing up for the principles of a liberal society consistently, but it's gotten polarized like everything else.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- monochromatic 10y ago
  It only looks that way from an extreme-left perspective.
  - AsyncAwait 10y ago
    So what "extreme left" positions does the ACLU endorse?
    - monochromatic 10y ago
      I didn't say they were extreme left. I said they only look moderate/apolitical from an extreme-left perspective.
      - AsyncAwait 10y ago
        Ok, so what positions does the ACLU hold that you would say appear moderate from an extreme left perspective, but actually are not?
      - int_19h 10y ago
        It's actually the other way around. ACLU didn't change their positions in any significant way in several decades now. But the parties and their platforms have changed such that the set of rights and liberties that ACLU promotes now has a "liberal bias", in a sense that it coincides more with the Democratic party platform than it does with the Republican party platform. But what this tells you is that GOP platform is hostile to civil rights, not that ACLU became partisan.
del82 10y ago
Can you explain specifically how the ACLU is a left-leaning political organization, rather than an apolitical nonprofit?
- MK999 10y ago
  They sue anything that looks like Christianity, that makes them "left-leaning".
- jrmurad 10y ago
  Some "left-leaning" stances they take where I'm hard-pressed to see how they are defending civil rights, if not outright violating those of one party for the benefit of another: affirmative action: https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/affirmative-action https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/affirmative-actio... voter id (are all the other countries that have this violating their citizens' civil rights?): https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-... religious liberty (an employer engages in voluntary exchange... not much of a stretch to see it as a violation of rights to force them to pay for something which they consider blasphemous): https://action.aclu.org/secure/your-boss-has-no-business-your-birth-control https://action.aclu.org/secure/your-boss-has-no-business-you... abortion (Roe v Wade federal overreach vs States' Rights... this and other issues like marijuana laws can be left to the States but "leftists" generally prefer a stronger central government over States as "laboratories of democracy"): https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom/abortion https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom/abortion ACA/"Obamacare": I couldn't find anything about their position on this issue but, if they were only defending civil rights rather than also being a "left-leaning political organization", I think they'd actively oppose forcing people to pay corporations for products they don't want.
  - problems 10y ago
    I feel like you could have a good argument about most of those, but the affirmative action one is pretty damning. That's blatantly political and in no way related to constitutional protections. There are plenty of good civil liberties related ways to look at race, but affirmative action is not one of them.
mst 10y ago
The ACLU sued to protect the rights of neo-nazis. That's not how most "just a left-leaning political organization"s behave.
- problems 10y ago
  I had great respect for them when they were doing that kind of thing and standing up for everyone's right to speech. Do they still engage in that? If I recall correctly they haven't had cases like that in decades. All their recent cases in my memory are left-leaning at least, which, while they do represent many good goals in my opinion, is understandably a political slant.
  - mikeyouse 10y ago
    >. Do they still engage in that? If I recall correctly they haven't had cases like that in decades. From: https://www.aclu.org/defending-our-rights/court-battles https://www.aclu.org/defending-our-rights/court-battles Some recent cases; * The ACLU filed a motion in Michigan state court challenging the constitutionality of a subpoena issued to the website PubPeer demanding that it turn over the identities of anonymous commenters * The ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s mass interception and searching of Americans’ international communications. * Whether a cause of action is available under the Constitution for violations of prisoners’ due process and equal protection rights when the prisoners were abused in immigration custody and when the government. * Whether North Carolina can prohibit individuals who are registered sex offenders from “accessing” any social media websites. * In a Freedom of Information Act request filed on January 13, 2010, the ACLU asked the government to disclose the legal and factual basis for its use of predator drones to conduct "targeted killings" overseas. They do a lot of good work.
    - problems 10y ago
      They definitely do, but I was speaking in particular to their more controversial actions. They've done many good defenses of politically left or fairly neutral things, but I can't think of any on the right side of the spectrum in recent memory and as someone with fairly moderate political views, that does concern me a bit.
jonstewart 10y ago
The ACLU has a foundation that can accept tax-deductible contributions, but it's limited in what it can do. Donations to the main ACLU, like my monthly contribution, are not tax-deductible. YC, did you give to the foundation or to the main ACLU?
xeromal 10y ago
The ACLU has defended the rights of neo-nazis and pedophiles. They defend people that no one wants to defend including democrats.
- monochromatic 10y ago
  Recently?
  - int_19h 10y ago
    Yes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-history-of-the-aclu-defending-confederate-veterans-the-kkk-and-rush-limbaugh/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-... Which is something that can be found with a straightforward Google search, I must add, so the sheer number of comments here that are asking this question makes me conclude that most of you doing that believe the question to be rhetorical. As in, you assume that ACLU does no such thing, because "everybody knows that". Well, "everybody" is wrong.
- a-guest 10y ago
  The murder of innocent children in or out of the womb is neither civil nor American; nor is it an expression of liberty in terms of doing what is right. But if the ACLU calls this "liberty", that is terrifying. "There is a healthy and an unhealthy love of animals: and the nearest definition of the difference is that the unhealthy love of animals is serious. I am quite prepared to love a rhinoceros, with reasonable precautions: he is, doubtless, a delightful father to the young rhinoceroses. But I will not promise not to laugh at a rhinoceros. . . . I will not worship an animal. That is, I will not take an animal quite seriously: and I know why. Wherever there is Animal Worship there is Human Sacrifice. That is, both symbolically and literally, a real truth of historical experience." http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421961/wherever-there-animal-worship-there-human-sacrifice-nicholas-frankovich http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421961/wherever-there-a... https://www.aclu.org/blog/ag-gag-not-just-about-animal-welfare https://www.aclu.org/blog/ag-gag-not-just-about-animal-welfa...
abecedarius 10y ago
Downvoted because of the false implication of favorable tax treatment. Donations to the ACLU are not deductible, though they have an associated foundation you can donate to instead: https://action.aclu.org/what-difference https://action.aclu.org/what-difference

vermontdevil 10y ago

left-leaning? Supporting the Constitution is left-leaning? Sign me up! And yes they don't defend the 2nd amendment because there are already two large organizations focused on that.

justin66 10y ago
> And yes they don't defend the 2nd amendment because there are already two large organizations focused on that. I think it's accurate to say that the lawyers at ACLU have a position on the interpretation of the 2nd Amendment (viewable on their website) which is not consistent with the views commonly offered by the NRA. The ACLU would only go to court to help fight a 2nd Amendment violation where they believed one existed, so that's part of the difference.
- monochromatic 10y ago
  It's also not consistent with binding caselaw offered by the Supreme Court. But whatever.
  - justin66 10y ago
    I'd argue that today neither organization has a view of the 2nd consistent with current case law, which is interesting. They're both advocacy organizations, among other things, so it isn't a shocking situation.
monochromatic 10y ago
They don't defend the 2nd amendment because they're left-leaning. Like I said.

gadders 10y ago

YC/Sam A hosted a fund raiser for the Democratic party/Obama [1] [1] https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/president-obama-will-headline-dnc-fundraiser-hosted-by-ycs-sam-altman-and-yahoos-marissa-mayer/ https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/20/president-obama-will-headl...

equalarrow 10y ago

How are your rights 'trendy'? I tend to stay out of politics, and don't really label people as such, but Trump is a bad guy. I'm happy to donate engineering time to the ACLU.

sp332 10y ago
"Trump is a bad guy". Well OK but the ACLU does more than just fight Trump. It's possible that people have mixed feelings about those various things.
monochromatic 10y ago
> Trump is a bad guy That's your political opinion. Half the country disagrees (or at least found him less-bad than the alternative).
- jckt 10y ago
  Doesn't make him not a bad guy.
- grzm 10y ago
  Trump (and Clinton) had record-breaking unfavorable ratings during the campaign. Your point about "less-bad" carries a lot of weight, in my opinion (and would have been the case regardless of who won the election). And step back and think of it: half think bad, half think good. Is that a situation you'd like to consider "not bad" in the grand scheme of things? Mediocre sounds like a fairer assessment, on average. And frankly I think we'd all prefer a solid "good" rather than an ambiguous "not bad".
- adrienne 10y ago
  Less than one-quarter of the country, actually. Half the country didn't vote.
A_Crazy_Idea 10y ago
How is ACLU involved with my rights?
lol214365 10y ago

AsyncAwait 10y ago

The ACLU tends to not pick political sides.

JCzynski 10y ago
This has been decreasingly true in recent years, in fairness. They've still been standing up for the principles of a liberal society consistently, but it's gotten polarized like everything else.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
monochromatic 10y ago
It only looks that way from an extreme-left perspective.
- AsyncAwait 10y ago
  So what "extreme left" positions does the ACLU endorse?
  - monochromatic 10y ago
    I didn't say they were extreme left. I said they only look moderate/apolitical from an extreme-left perspective.
    - AsyncAwait 10y ago
      Ok, so what positions does the ACLU hold that you would say appear moderate from an extreme left perspective, but actually are not?
    - int_19h 10y ago
      It's actually the other way around. ACLU didn't change their positions in any significant way in several decades now. But the parties and their platforms have changed such that the set of rights and liberties that ACLU promotes now has a "liberal bias", in a sense that it coincides more with the Democratic party platform than it does with the Republican party platform. But what this tells you is that GOP platform is hostile to civil rights, not that ACLU became partisan.

del82 10y ago

Can you explain specifically how the ACLU is a left-leaning political organization, rather than an apolitical nonprofit?

MK999 10y ago
They sue anything that looks like Christianity, that makes them "left-leaning".
jrmurad 10y ago
Some "left-leaning" stances they take where I'm hard-pressed to see how they are defending civil rights, if not outright violating those of one party for the benefit of another: affirmative action: https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/affirmative-action https://www.aclu.org/issues/racial-justice/affirmative-actio... voter id (are all the other countries that have this violating their citizens' civil rights?): https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-sheet https://www.aclu.org/other/oppose-voter-id-legislation-fact-... religious liberty (an employer engages in voluntary exchange... not much of a stretch to see it as a violation of rights to force them to pay for something which they consider blasphemous): https://action.aclu.org/secure/your-boss-has-no-business-your-birth-control https://action.aclu.org/secure/your-boss-has-no-business-you... abortion (Roe v Wade federal overreach vs States' Rights... this and other issues like marijuana laws can be left to the States but "leftists" generally prefer a stronger central government over States as "laboratories of democracy"): https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom/abortion https://www.aclu.org/issues/reproductive-freedom/abortion ACA/"Obamacare": I couldn't find anything about their position on this issue but, if they were only defending civil rights rather than also being a "left-leaning political organization", I think they'd actively oppose forcing people to pay corporations for products they don't want.
- problems 10y ago
  I feel like you could have a good argument about most of those, but the affirmative action one is pretty damning. That's blatantly political and in no way related to constitutional protections. There are plenty of good civil liberties related ways to look at race, but affirmative action is not one of them.

mst 10y ago

The ACLU sued to protect the rights of neo-nazis. That's not how most "just a left-leaning political organization"s behave.

problems 10y ago
I had great respect for them when they were doing that kind of thing and standing up for everyone's right to speech. Do they still engage in that? If I recall correctly they haven't had cases like that in decades. All their recent cases in my memory are left-leaning at least, which, while they do represent many good goals in my opinion, is understandably a political slant.
- mikeyouse 10y ago
  >. Do they still engage in that? If I recall correctly they haven't had cases like that in decades. From: https://www.aclu.org/defending-our-rights/court-battles https://www.aclu.org/defending-our-rights/court-battles Some recent cases; * The ACLU filed a motion in Michigan state court challenging the constitutionality of a subpoena issued to the website PubPeer demanding that it turn over the identities of anonymous commenters * The ACLU has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the NSA’s mass interception and searching of Americans’ international communications. * Whether a cause of action is available under the Constitution for violations of prisoners’ due process and equal protection rights when the prisoners were abused in immigration custody and when the government. * Whether North Carolina can prohibit individuals who are registered sex offenders from “accessing” any social media websites. * In a Freedom of Information Act request filed on January 13, 2010, the ACLU asked the government to disclose the legal and factual basis for its use of predator drones to conduct "targeted killings" overseas. They do a lot of good work.
  - problems 10y ago
    They definitely do, but I was speaking in particular to their more controversial actions. They've done many good defenses of politically left or fairly neutral things, but I can't think of any on the right side of the spectrum in recent memory and as someone with fairly moderate political views, that does concern me a bit.

jonstewart 10y ago

The ACLU has a foundation that can accept tax-deductible contributions, but it's limited in what it can do. Donations to the main ACLU, like my monthly contribution, are not tax-deductible. YC, did you give to the foundation or to the main ACLU?

xeromal 10y ago

The ACLU has defended the rights of neo-nazis and pedophiles. They defend people that no one wants to defend including democrats.

monochromatic 10y ago
Recently?
- int_19h 10y ago
  Yes. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-history-of-the-aclu-defending-confederate-veterans-the-kkk-and-rush-limbaugh/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/06/19/a-... Which is something that can be found with a straightforward Google search, I must add, so the sheer number of comments here that are asking this question makes me conclude that most of you doing that believe the question to be rhetorical. As in, you assume that ACLU does no such thing, because "everybody knows that". Well, "everybody" is wrong.
a-guest 10y ago
The murder of innocent children in or out of the womb is neither civil nor American; nor is it an expression of liberty in terms of doing what is right. But if the ACLU calls this "liberty", that is terrifying. "There is a healthy and an unhealthy love of animals: and the nearest definition of the difference is that the unhealthy love of animals is serious. I am quite prepared to love a rhinoceros, with reasonable precautions: he is, doubtless, a delightful father to the young rhinoceroses. But I will not promise not to laugh at a rhinoceros. . . . I will not worship an animal. That is, I will not take an animal quite seriously: and I know why. Wherever there is Animal Worship there is Human Sacrifice. That is, both symbolically and literally, a real truth of historical experience." http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421961/wherever-there-animal-worship-there-human-sacrifice-nicholas-frankovich http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/421961/wherever-there-a... https://www.aclu.org/blog/ag-gag-not-just-about-animal-welfare https://www.aclu.org/blog/ag-gag-not-just-about-animal-welfa...

abecedarius 10y ago

Downvoted because of the false implication of favorable tax treatment. Donations to the ACLU are not deductible, though they have an associated foundation you can donate to instead: https://action.aclu.org/what-difference https://action.aclu.org/what-difference