5 ms·

ACLU has been subverted by political correctness, mob mentality of internet, and the do-gooder activists. ACLU is a perfect example on how we ended up in the th

by mudil 5y ago

ACLU has been subverted by political correctness, mob mentality of internet, and the do-gooder activists. ACLU is a perfect example on how we ended up in the through the looking glass world.

creamytaco 5y ago
One has to wonder if the useful idiots (according to Lenin) that are propagating this wave of ideological censorship and intolerance realize what they are in for. The powers that be must surely be extremely pleased to see such hated - by corporate and financial kleptocracy - liberal bastions as free speech and open debate dismantled and destroyed. I fear it is already too late.
- DennisAleynikov 5y ago
  short answer is no
- wutbrodo 5y ago
  I'm hoping that it's self-correcting. The right has (belatedly) starting using this lunacy against the left. I guess the best we can hope for is that the illiberal masses on one side act as a counterweight against the illiberal masses on the other until they rediscover the purpose of the liberalism. In the meanwhile, for anyone who wasn't stupid enough to forget, the best you can do is try and stay out of the way. I'm delighted to have found a job that's mission-focused enough that this nonsense doesn't come close to touching the people doing real work in the way it (stochastically) can at places with more slack, like Google. We pay a tax, in the form of HR playing masturbatory language games with each other, but I've never once had to care about it.
  - a1369209993 5y ago
    > In the meanwhile, for anyone who wasn't stupid enough to forget, the best you can do is try and stay out of the way. This is indeed about the best plan I've been able to come up with. Based on history, I worry it's woefully insufficient.
- dang 5y ago
  Please don't take HN further into ideological flamewar. Even in this thread, your comment stands out as a noticeable step in that direction, and we're trying to go the opposite way here. What to do instead: (1) turn down boilerplate rhetoric and name-calling; (2) turn up relevant details and pertinent specific information. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
dale_glass 5y ago
That's not what I get from reading it. You could give that a try. Here's an interesting bit: > The A.C.L.U. of Virginia argued that this violated the free speech rights of the far-right groups and won, preserving the right for the group to parade downtown. With too few police officers who reacted too passively, the demonstration turned ugly and violent; in addition to fistfights, the far right loosed anti-Semitic and racist chants and a right-wing demonstrator plowed his car into counterprotesters, killing a woman. Dozens were injured in the tumult. > Revulsion swelled within the A.C.L.U., and many assailed its executive director, Anthony Romero, and legal director, Mr. Cole, as privileged and clueless. The A.C.L.U. unfurled new guidelines that suggested lawyers should balance taking a free speech case representing right-wing groups whose “values are contrary to our values” against the potential such a case might give “offense to marginalized groups.” That's not political correctness, that's ideals colliding head-on with the grim reality. The real world isn't a Disney movie, and doing the "right thing" doesn't magically make everything work out positively. So the Virginia ACLU defended the freedom of speech of Nazis, and the Nazis did what Nazis do and ran over people they didn't like, killing a woman. At that point a lot of people started asking themselves "Are we really being a positive influence?". And a conflict began. I see this as a conflict between deontology and consequentialism. Deontology says "free speech was defended, the outcome doesn't matter. Let's keep going". But it turns out that deontology isn't that great of a fit for the real world, because people do care about consequences very intensely. Few have the iron-clad nerve needed to say "an innocent died as the consequence of my/my group's actions, and nevertheless I wouldn't change a thing". I think the major difference now vs the 70s is that news spread far wider, and consequences are communicated far better and more viscerally.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  All of this. When the reality is that a political movement will operate in bad faith and intentionally, aggressively exploit any such ideological fulcrum as a weakness in a coordinated way, clinging to deontology makes you a knowing ally… which means you have taken sides. I can see why this discussion's turned ugly, but it can't NOT be ugly. None of this is hypothetical. It's blown up because the aforementioned Nazis worked out that they could compel the ACLU to effectively become a Nazi ally and devote their forces to the cause of terrorism. Under the ground rules of what the ACLU is, if properly managed, the organization can be used to clear the way for violence and actions that are not on brand for the ACLU, and not what it thinks of as 'civil liberty'. This is a clever sort of meta-gaming thing, but it's also an obvious existential crisis for the ACLU to the extent that the ACLU cares at all about terrorism. I think there's an assumption that we can define some things with a bright line never to be infringed upon, and that there will never be exploits to undermine our assumptions. And I mean, that's not even true for mathematical proof, much less free-speech liberalism.

by mudil 5y ago

ACLU has been subverted by political correctness, mob mentality of internet, and the do-gooder activists. ACLU is a perfect example on how we ended up in the through the looking glass world.

creamytaco 5y ago

One has to wonder if the useful idiots (according to Lenin) that are propagating this wave of ideological censorship and intolerance realize what they are in for. The powers that be must surely be extremely pleased to see such hated - by corporate and financial kleptocracy - liberal bastions as free speech and open debate dismantled and destroyed. I fear it is already too late.

DennisAleynikov 5y ago
short answer is no
wutbrodo 5y ago
I'm hoping that it's self-correcting. The right has (belatedly) starting using this lunacy against the left. I guess the best we can hope for is that the illiberal masses on one side act as a counterweight against the illiberal masses on the other until they rediscover the purpose of the liberalism. In the meanwhile, for anyone who wasn't stupid enough to forget, the best you can do is try and stay out of the way. I'm delighted to have found a job that's mission-focused enough that this nonsense doesn't come close to touching the people doing real work in the way it (stochastically) can at places with more slack, like Google. We pay a tax, in the form of HR playing masturbatory language games with each other, but I've never once had to care about it.
- a1369209993 5y ago
  > In the meanwhile, for anyone who wasn't stupid enough to forget, the best you can do is try and stay out of the way. This is indeed about the best plan I've been able to come up with. Based on history, I worry it's woefully insufficient.
dang 5y ago
Please don't take HN further into ideological flamewar. Even in this thread, your comment stands out as a noticeable step in that direction, and we're trying to go the opposite way here. What to do instead: (1) turn down boilerplate rhetoric and name-calling; (2) turn up relevant details and pertinent specific information. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=generic%20ideolog%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&sor... https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

dale_glass 5y ago

That's not what I get from reading it. You could give that a try. Here's an interesting bit: > The A.C.L.U. of Virginia argued that this violated the free speech rights of the far-right groups and won, preserving the right for the group to parade downtown. With too few police officers who reacted too passively, the demonstration turned ugly and violent; in addition to fistfights, the far right loosed anti-Semitic and racist chants and a right-wing demonstrator plowed his car into counterprotesters, killing a woman. Dozens were injured in the tumult. > Revulsion swelled within the A.C.L.U., and many assailed its executive director, Anthony Romero, and legal director, Mr. Cole, as privileged and clueless. The A.C.L.U. unfurled new guidelines that suggested lawyers should balance taking a free speech case representing right-wing groups whose “values are contrary to our values” against the potential such a case might give “offense to marginalized groups.” That's not political correctness, that's ideals colliding head-on with the grim reality. The real world isn't a Disney movie, and doing the "right thing" doesn't magically make everything work out positively. So the Virginia ACLU defended the freedom of speech of Nazis, and the Nazis did what Nazis do and ran over people they didn't like, killing a woman. At that point a lot of people started asking themselves "Are we really being a positive influence?". And a conflict began. I see this as a conflict between deontology and consequentialism. Deontology says "free speech was defended, the outcome doesn't matter. Let's keep going". But it turns out that deontology isn't that great of a fit for the real world, because people do care about consequences very intensely. Few have the iron-clad nerve needed to say "an innocent died as the consequence of my/my group's actions, and nevertheless I wouldn't change a thing". I think the major difference now vs the 70s is that news spread far wider, and consequences are communicated far better and more viscerally.

Applejinx 5y ago
All of this. When the reality is that a political movement will operate in bad faith and intentionally, aggressively exploit any such ideological fulcrum as a weakness in a coordinated way, clinging to deontology makes you a knowing ally… which means you have taken sides. I can see why this discussion's turned ugly, but it can't NOT be ugly. None of this is hypothetical. It's blown up because the aforementioned Nazis worked out that they could compel the ACLU to effectively become a Nazi ally and devote their forces to the cause of terrorism. Under the ground rules of what the ACLU is, if properly managed, the organization can be used to clear the way for violence and actions that are not on brand for the ACLU, and not what it thinks of as 'civil liberty'. This is a clever sort of meta-gaming thing, but it's also an obvious existential crisis for the ACLU to the extent that the ACLU cares at all about terrorism. I think there's an assumption that we can define some things with a bright line never to be infringed upon, and that there will never be exploits to undermine our assumptions. And I mean, that's not even true for mathematical proof, much less free-speech liberalism.