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Your objections are weak and poorly thought out. 1) An ACLU member who spent thousands of dollars and their free time trying to suppress free speech rights sho

Your objections are weak and poorly thought out. 1) An ACLU member who spent thousands of dollars and their free time trying to suppress free speech rights shouldn't have been in the ACLU to begin with. Free speech didn't cause this violence, a terrorist and assorted thugs and instigators did. Banning free speech doesn't heal those people's brains of the ill they carry. 2) If Strangio can't support free speech for everyone, including people he finds despicable, he doesn't support free speech at all. Who decides which opinions and people are "despicable"? Sooner or later we all risk being viewed as despicable by someone in power, free societies have always degenerated into tyranny over time. Let's not hurry the process in the U.S. Again, Strangio should resign from the ACLU. 3) And what is the point of the last tweet? The ACLU doesn't have the resources to take every case and fight every battle. Are you arguing they should pick the ones that are less contentious? Or involve less despicable people? How about they pick the ones that have the most importance in our society?

geofft 9y ago
You rebut your own points. > An ACLU member who spent thousands of dollars and their free time trying to suppress free speech rights ... Free speech didn't cause this violence That's exactly the point: he was not trying to suppress free speech rights, and conversely, the ACLU was not defending free speech. They thought they were. For good reasons. Nobody, including Jaquith, is questioning their good intentions. But they were wrong. He was an ACLU member because he valued free speech, and he took an action that he believed was likely to prevent violence without risking free speech. The ACLU disagreed. He decided to continue being a member of the board of the ACLU of Virginia because he respected that he could have been wrong and the ACLU could have been right. It turned out the ACLU was wrong. Are we now to believe that the ACLU is infallible, that anything they call free speech is in fact free speech, and that even anyone involved with the ACLU who disagrees with the organization's decisions is to be excommunicated? > If Strangio can't support free speech for everyone, including people he finds despicable Again, he's supporting free speech for everyone, as far as that goal is possible. He believes that the ACLU's case is not in fact advancing the cause of free speech for everyone. And, in any case, let us suppose that Strangio should resign from the ACLU and that Jaquith should never have joined. Even so, they have points worth debating honestly. Greenwald isn't doing that. Perhaps "free speech for everyone" is a self-contradictory goal, or a goal that simply serves as cover for "continued free speech for the powerful", and they can't honestly support that goal. That just means the ACLU is worth criticizing, and they're the people who would know the most about what the ACLU is doing wrong! > How about they pick the ones that have the most importance in our society? That is exactly what I'm proposing. Milo Yiannopoulos is in no danger of not having his ideas heard by society, of people not knowing that he exists, of people not knowing what he believes. Neither were any of the folks at yesterday's rally. Their message was clear months in advance: they believe we should keep the statue of Robert E. Lee because it symbolizes a history worth remembering. Milo is no minority viewpoint, nor is the alt-right. (Greenwald gets this wrong too, by pretending that the "mainstream" and the majority are the same, and everything opinion outside the mainstream/majority is equally marginalized.) His right to speak is important. But it is not significantly at risk, and as a result, defending his right is far from the most important thing in our society. The neo-Nazis were going to march in Charlottesville anyway; the ACLU picked a case that gave them the right to march in the park they wanted instead of the park they didn't want. I really do not understand the argument that anyone (neo-Nazis, antifa, the Papal Guard, whoever) being able to march in the right park is the most important issue in our society. We don't even know who the person the ACLU didn't represent was going to say. We don't know who they were. And not only were they silenced, they are now gone from America.
- tptacek 9y ago
  I don't really agree with the thrust of this comment but I will readily admit it's comprised of strong, thoughtful arguments. In particular: it is not the ACLU's role to determine the reasonable time, place, and manner for the march. They're the legal advocates for the "speech" side of the controversy. Like all lawyers, their first loyalty is with their own clients. It's the job of the city and state governments to argue the other side, that the specific parks selected for the march are inappropriate. It's the job of the courts to sort through those arguments. In a similar sense, virtually every pro-bono lawyer appealing death sentences must know that their clients are guilty for horrible crimes. But it is absolutely not their job to submit measured, fair briefs. Rather, it's to throw every procedural and factual doubt at the wall in the hopes that something, anything will save their clients from being killed by the state. Hopefully, we see these people as heroes, despite the fact that they're arguing on behalf of heinous criminals and in many cases against the victims of those crimes.

geofft 9y ago

You rebut your own points. > An ACLU member who spent thousands of dollars and their free time trying to suppress free speech rights ... Free speech didn't cause this violence That's exactly the point: he was not trying to suppress free speech rights, and conversely, the ACLU was not defending free speech. They thought they were. For good reasons. Nobody, including Jaquith, is questioning their good intentions. But they were wrong. He was an ACLU member because he valued free speech, and he took an action that he believed was likely to prevent violence without risking free speech. The ACLU disagreed. He decided to continue being a member of the board of the ACLU of Virginia because he respected that he could have been wrong and the ACLU could have been right. It turned out the ACLU was wrong. Are we now to believe that the ACLU is infallible, that anything they call free speech is in fact free speech, and that even anyone involved with the ACLU who disagrees with the organization's decisions is to be excommunicated? > If Strangio can't support free speech for everyone, including people he finds despicable Again, he's supporting free speech for everyone, as far as that goal is possible. He believes that the ACLU's case is not in fact advancing the cause of free speech for everyone. And, in any case, let us suppose that Strangio should resign from the ACLU and that Jaquith should never have joined. Even so, they have points worth debating honestly. Greenwald isn't doing that. Perhaps "free speech for everyone" is a self-contradictory goal, or a goal that simply serves as cover for "continued free speech for the powerful", and they can't honestly support that goal. That just means the ACLU is worth criticizing, and they're the people who would know the most about what the ACLU is doing wrong! > How about they pick the ones that have the most importance in our society? That is exactly what I'm proposing. Milo Yiannopoulos is in no danger of not having his ideas heard by society, of people not knowing that he exists, of people not knowing what he believes. Neither were any of the folks at yesterday's rally. Their message was clear months in advance: they believe we should keep the statue of Robert E. Lee because it symbolizes a history worth remembering. Milo is no minority viewpoint, nor is the alt-right. (Greenwald gets this wrong too, by pretending that the "mainstream" and the majority are the same, and everything opinion outside the mainstream/majority is equally marginalized.) His right to speak is important. But it is not significantly at risk, and as a result, defending his right is far from the most important thing in our society. The neo-Nazis were going to march in Charlottesville anyway; the ACLU picked a case that gave them the right to march in the park they wanted instead of the park they didn't want. I really do not understand the argument that anyone (neo-Nazis, antifa, the Papal Guard, whoever) being able to march in the right park is the most important issue in our society. We don't even know who the person the ACLU didn't represent was going to say. We don't know who they were. And not only were they silenced, they are now gone from America.

tptacek 9y ago
I don't really agree with the thrust of this comment but I will readily admit it's comprised of strong, thoughtful arguments. In particular: it is not the ACLU's role to determine the reasonable time, place, and manner for the march. They're the legal advocates for the "speech" side of the controversy. Like all lawyers, their first loyalty is with their own clients. It's the job of the city and state governments to argue the other side, that the specific parks selected for the march are inappropriate. It's the job of the courts to sort through those arguments. In a similar sense, virtually every pro-bono lawyer appealing death sentences must know that their clients are guilty for horrible crimes. But it is absolutely not their job to submit measured, fair briefs. Rather, it's to throw every procedural and factual doubt at the wall in the hopes that something, anything will save their clients from being killed by the state. Hopefully, we see these people as heroes, despite the fact that they're arguing on behalf of heinous criminals and in many cases against the victims of those crimes.