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I've been a relatively big ACLU donor, big enough to have been appointed an "Individual Giving Officer." I've met with some of their leadership. They've begun

I've been a relatively big ACLU donor, big enough to have been appointed an "Individual Giving Officer." I've met with some of their leadership. They've begun taking positions against individual civil rights. They've always been anti-2nd amendment, which I can understand, but this has escalated to the point that I think they're often on the wrong side of 1a issues as well. I won't donate to them anymore. I regret that I did in the past.

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countvonbalzac 4y ago
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- marcusverus 4y ago
  The ACLU site explicitly says that they don't recognize the 2A as an individual right.[0] > Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view. This position is currently under review and is being updated by the ACLU National Board in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in D.C. v. Heller in 2008. > In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia. The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. [0]https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment
  - ikiris 4y ago
    That doesn't mean they're against the amendment, just that they disagree with your interpretation of it.
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      And Heller, and non-binding opinions of it from the last 200 years. If I interpret the first amendment to only apply to brown eyed people, and then defend that very odd interpretation, am I still a defender of the first amendment?
      - mLuby 4y ago
        If you interpret the 4th amendment's "papers" to mean only tree-based sheets, not documents which might be electronic, are you really a defender of the 4th amendment? > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…
        cperciva 4y ago
        If you want to be etymologically pedantic, "papers" should mean only sheets of papyrus.
  - dionian 4y ago
    "well-regulated" means "well-armed" or "well-equipped", not "well-regulated by laws". cf. https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/cons/wellregu.htm https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/cons/wellregu.htm See my other comment below about the precise legal definition of militia.
    - kristjansson 4y ago
      More like 'appropriately armed' or 'properly equipped', no? "well-armed" and "well-equipped" imply a surfeit of arms and equipment, whereas well-regulated connotes balance or homeostasis
    - ameister14 4y ago
      I don't think it's actually just arms and equipment. It means 'well-ordered.' It's the ability to call up organize and elect leadership from the people at need, among many other things. For example, Article I Section 8 provides Congress the power "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;" It's in a similar manner that the 2nd should treat 'regulated' militias.
    - gjm11 4y ago
      That page neither argues that, nor supports the view that, "well-regulated" means well armed or well equipped. The page argues that it means something like "running well", but the examples they give seem to me to fit better with a slightly different meaning that also matches the etymology of the word (in Latin a regula is a rule; it comes from the word meaning to rule or govern). I think "well-regulated" means some combination of: well organized, well governed, well adjusted, well controlled. In the Second Amendment it may or may not have specifically the sense of "well organized/governed/adjusted/controlled by the nation's government". But it's definitely not just talking about a militia that has enough weapons, or a militia that is good at shooting the people it wants to shoot; a well-regulated militia is one that is well organized and that makes good choices about who to shoot and why. (It also seems clear to me that "well-regulated" is not there to be any part of the point of the Second Amendment. I think it's mentioned in passing, possibly exactly to reassure people who might otherwise worry that the 2A is trying to set things up so that armed mobs terrorize everyone. "For a free state to remain secure, it needs a militia -- yes, yes, of course it has to be a well regulated one -- and so the people must be able to have weapons.")
  - xbar 4y ago
    I am sad about this set of facts about the ACLUs position. Longer than the ACLU has held its opinion, the Constitution and the writings of the Founders, both before and after its ratification, ascribe all of the rights in the Bill of Rights to individuals, including the 2nd Amendment specifically. I have long been an ACLU member and donor. Despite my differences of opinion on some matters, I have been grateful that they have fought in the name of rights in a great many cases. I do wish they would take a broader view on their mandate on Civil Liberties, today and tomorrow.
    - boppo1 4y ago
      >writings of the Founders... ascribe all of the rights in the Bill of Rights to individuals Can you point me in the direction of these writings?
      - briHass 4y ago
        The Federalist Papers, particularly those of Hamilton and Madison. Notably #84: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._84 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._84 Ironically, Hamilton was both wrong and right here. He was right that by enumerating rights in the BoR that it has empowered the government to view those rights as the only ones that are untouchable (and not even that.) However, he was wrong that the COTUS would stand on its own to protect individual rights due to its strict limiting of the government's ability to infringe those natural rights -- which it very much has done.
      - xbar 4y ago
        “The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” – Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788 Later in life, even: “The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824
    - woodruffw 4y ago
      > Longer than the ACLU has held its opinion, the Constitution and the writings of the Founders, both before and after its ratification, ascribe all of the rights in the Bill of Rights to individuals, including the 2nd Amendment specifically. This isn't even remotely true. The 10th Amendment, for example, explicitly concerns the rights of the states and not the individuals within them. The phrase "well-regulated militia" should be a giveaway to you: individual human beings are singular, not plural, and the concept of a "well-regulated individual" doesn't make much sense either in the language of the framers. We've so profoundly distorted the original language as to effectively erase "militia" entirely[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
- sbierwagen 4y ago
  If the ACLU stated that the 1st Amendment was written with racist intent, would you interpret this as the ACLU supporting it?
  - xbar 4y ago
    - raarts 4y ago
      Proof that - just as good people sometimes do bad things - bad people can do good things.
    - dahfizz 4y ago
      And? Are you therefore anti 1st amendment?
      - xbar 4y ago
        No. I think the 1st amendment might be the most important and precious policy in the history of the world. I would disconnect framers from policy in such discussions--it is fallacy to do otherwise.
    - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
      Sure, but did they write the first amendment with racist intent? It isn't as if everything a racist does is motivated by their racism, they aren't putting the kettle on to make some tea to really show those [insert racial minority here] what for, or buying new jeans to put [insert minority here] in there place. There aren't racists planting bushes in their garden specifically to be racist. They are just racist people planting bushes because they want bushes in their garden and the racism is entirely unrelated.
    - fortuna86 4y ago
      Not for the explicit purpose of protecting the racist institution of slavery. You know that, your comment was cheeky and in bad faith.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > But they recognize that the second amendment was written with racist intent - https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1419294620417155074 https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1419294620417155074 Remarkable. The Founders totes protected the right to bear arms because of "racism," and not because they had just used the right to bear arms to found for themselves a new country free of the British monarchy. That makes total sense. Collapsing the entire history of a nation into a narrative about a minority within the nation.
  - doublepg23 4y ago
    > Collapsing the entire history of a nation into a narrative about a minority within the nation. That’s a very succinct way of putting it, thanks for this comment.
  - jacobolus 4y ago
    You could start by listening to the interview in question https://soundcloud.com/aclu/do-black-people-have-the-right-to-bear-arms https://soundcloud.com/aclu/do-black-people-have-the-right-t.... Here is a review of the book https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/books/review/the-second-carol-anderson.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/books/review/the-second-c... or you could try reading the book if you want more details. American white southerners (and white northerners for that matter) were scared out of their minds about the possibility of a rebellion comparable to the Haitian Revolution, which was contemporaneous with (edit: to clarify, took place during the ratification of) the Bill of Rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution A guarantee that “well regulated” militias under local control would not be taken down by the federal government was certainly related to slavery. Maintaining wealthy landowners’ power and protecting from slave revolts or other uprisings of disempowered people was perhaps the #1 purpose of those local militias.
    - PolygonSheep 4y ago
      > American white southerners were scared out of their minds about the possibility of a rebellion comparable to the Haitian Revolution, which was contemporaneous with the Bill of Rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution Wasn't a war for independence in which widespread civilian firearm ownership played a part in winning also kind of contemporaneous with the Bill of Rights?
- ameister14 4y ago
  >But they recognize that the second amendment was written with racist intent That's a pretty weird argument; I get the Patrick Henry thing with the Virginia Declaration of Rights but that doesn't even establish the 2nd amendment as we know it. Hell, we actually have the reasoning here in Federalist 46: "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence subordinate governments to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprizes of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. " I'll read her book to see what she thinks I suppose because she's a prominent historian and surely knows more than me but it still feels strange.
- tannhauser23 4y ago
  You're quoting the Nevada chapter of ACLU, now the parent organization. ACLU itself has consistently taken the position that the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to own firearms. ACLU _has_ supported NRA in its lawsuit against New York State, which alleges that the state discriminated against the organization because of its pro-firearm views: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/new-york-state-cant-be-allowed-stifle-nras-political-speech https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/new-york-state-cant-be...
mike00632 4y ago
To be fair to the ACLU, the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal guns independent of a militia is a very recent interpretation (Heller, 2008). It's also had disastrous consequences. It would be like expecting the ACLU to soon advocate against women's bodily rights in a few years because a new Supreme Court decision changed the long-held interpretation of the Constitution.
- deleted 4y ago
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- javagram 4y ago
  Correction: until 2008 in Heller, the Supreme Court had never clearly and definitively ruled the 2A is an individual right. It had previously referred to the 2A as an individual right in dicta (non binding opinions) that date back to the 19th century, and many courts and legislators back to the 19th century had also done so. The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers. That said, I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders is likely no longer suited for the modern world and some amendment to limit its scope would be reasonable.
  - dionian 4y ago
    According to US Code, a large portion of the regular people of the United States are members of an "unorganized" militia. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
    - javagram 4y ago
      True, but those who say the 2A is a “collective” right for the militia would not usually say that any male aged 17 to 45 should be able to purchase an AR-15 via their membership in the unorganized militia and Selective Service card. The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A right into the idea that Congress shouldn’t pass a law to take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which makes very little sense.
devman0 4y ago
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- eweise 4y ago
  "people try to use 'free speech' as cover to rally for causes that marginalize, harass, and ultimately remove rights from others" Isn't that the point of the article? The ACLU used to promote free speech for Nazis. Now its political.
  - s1artibartfast 4y ago
    *protect, not promote. There is a huge difference between allowing and endorsing, which is getting conflated in modern thought and discourse.
- dionidium 4y ago
  I don't accept that this is new. This has always been the tension in this debate. It was the tension when they supported the Nazi's right to march in Skokie and it was the tension for 200-years-worth of arguing about it before that. And it's a tension that the ACLU once took a clear (and extremely controversial) position on.
- gameman144 4y ago
  I hear the Paradox of Tolerance whipped out in discussions of how best to curb free speech before it harms others. I'm always genuinely curious about this, since it seems to me that this curb is already really well-defined: free speech does not imply free action inspired by that speech. We already have laws against speech which causes imminent and material harm (e.g. libel laws, incitement of violence), and beyond that it seems like the Paradox of Tolerance doesn't actually apply here: nobody is advocating that we should tolerate the whole slippery slope of action, most advocates (myself included) carve out tolerance explicitly for speech alone.
  - spion 4y ago
    Speech inspires action. There is a lot of legally allowed action that can still cause plenty of harm, and speech can stimulate that action. I don't have a solution, but we can't pretend that speech isn't much more powerful in today's society - if it were the profession "social media influencer" would not exist. IMO we have systems today (social networks) that make previously unspreadable speech pathological by creating a brain-virus-spreading environment (which is why things go viral, literally). Furthermore the environment favors evolution towards short, poorly thought out, poorly reviewed, "engaging" (and enraging) yellow-press like content.
rajin444 4y ago
It’s a shame because society needs examples of institutions that represent values as important as free speech. If we want to move forward we have to tolerate nazi speeches as long as they obey the law. When institutions like that disappear it’s a lot harder for individuals to keep up the fight.
- UnpossibleJim 4y ago
  The hard thing about defending Nazi's marching is that people have to understand that it sets a precedent for the Black Power movement to march or women's rights movements to march or pro-choice movements to march. If you let these horrible people's rights be stripped away, then when a new power sits in the driver's seat, those causes that you care about can be stripped away because of the short sighted, greedy view taken. EDIT: changed "you" to "people"
  - boc 4y ago
    “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” The issue is, of course, the thorny problem of allowing illiberal speech. What would the above author say if someone told them: "I disagree with what you say, and I'll make it illegal to say and jail you for it in the future" Are you, the original author, supposed to defend their right to threaten your freedoms with your own life? From this paradox emerged the current debate over de-platforming and "free speech" because people are nervous that their liberties are at risk, and thus they shouldn't tolerate intolerance. Personally I think it's tricky. We have many, many examples of nations where illiberal leaders abused their freedom of expression to gain power only to pull up that protection behind them and become a dictator while crushing dissent. We really only have a few counter-examples (namely the United States) where free speech absolutism has survived multiple regimes. The model of free speech that is currently popular on the Right, namely freedom from public backlash as the result of open expression, is juvenile and not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. You have the right to say whatever you want from the perspective of the State, but you do not have the right to an audience or to escape the consequences of your speech. Nobody should ever be arrested for their political opinions, but this idea that the left has gone "woke" or mad by cancelling people they disagree with is simply their right as individuals. So long as the Government isn't making it illegal for you to appear on TV or have a cell phone provider (for example), there's no such thing as being cancelled by the government from a 1st amendment perspective. On the left there's a bit more nuanced debate that basically pressures private institutions to cancel and de-platform actors that the left feels are attacking the foundation of their institutions. This is all above-board from a legal perspective, but can feel illiberal because it is largely mob-rule. Nuance is discarded and lives can be ruined by accusations that aren't researched in-depth before being blasted out into the world of social media. Here there also needs to be restraint, but again it's not like Verizon is cancelling someone's cell phone access because they had a bad tweet. It's ironically a very capitalist movement where the fear of affiliation hurting the economics of a business causes them to release a statement or "cancel" someone for their speech. Turns out being a racist isn't a great marketing tactic in our capitalist world. In sum I think the danger to our democracy is still greater from actors who seek to use freedom of expression as a ladder to the top, and then kick away that ladder once in power. It's the biggest weakness of open democracies, and one that should be guarded against carefully. Thankfully a strong commitment and defense of the 1st Amendment from both parties should thwart strongman attempts. We need to make sure that political tradition stays alive.
slg 4y ago
>They've begun taking positions against individual civil rights... this has escalated to the point that I think they're often on the wrong side of 1a issues as well. Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another? A common example is the baker tasked with making a wedding cake for a gay couple. Should the baker have the civil right to practice their religion which does not condone gay marriage? Or should the gay couple have the civil right to not be discriminated against for their sexuality? You can't take a position in this situation without being against someone's civil rights. As the political environment in the US becomes more polarized, these conflicts become more common and the apolitical path becomes less tenable. EDIT: I wasn't trying to start a debate about this specific court case. But the fact that simply mentioning it did spark that debate basically proves my point. There is no universal agreed upon line between the civil rights of one individual and the civil rights of another. When these conflicts arise, the ACLU's work will be inherently political because an apolitical compromise is rarely possible.
- ROTMetro 4y ago
  For the record I am pro-gay marriage, but your example is BS. The baker in your example was willing to bake them a cake. They were never denied a cake. What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech. It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights. Or going to an artist who sells t-shirts with their standard art and saying they denied me service when they wouldn't let me commission a custom piece that they didn't like to content of.
  - slg 4y ago
    >What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech This is just semantics of a legal argument. It is not some universal truth that ordering off menu puts any additional ethical strain on someone. If the baker would make those customizations for a straight couple and not a gay couple then the civil rights of the gay couple are being infringed.
madengr 4y ago
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bliteben 4y ago
How can you understand a right being only collective? I bet you don't believe in a collective right to privacy?

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countvonbalzac 4y ago

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marcusverus 4y ago
The ACLU site explicitly says that they don't recognize the 2A as an individual right.[0] > Given the reference to "a well regulated Militia" and "the security of a free State," the ACLU has long taken the position that the Second Amendment protects a collective right rather than an individual right. For seven decades, the Supreme Court's 1939 decision in United States v. Miller was widely understood to have endorsed that view. This position is currently under review and is being updated by the ACLU National Board in light of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in D.C. v. Heller in 2008. > In striking down Washington D.C.'s handgun ban by a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court's decision in D.C. v. Heller held for the first time that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to keep and bear arms, whether or not associated with a state militia. The ACLU disagrees with the Supreme Court's conclusion about the nature of the right protected by the Second Amendment. [0]https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment https://www.aclu.org/other/second-amendment
- ikiris 4y ago
  That doesn't mean they're against the amendment, just that they disagree with your interpretation of it.
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    And Heller, and non-binding opinions of it from the last 200 years. If I interpret the first amendment to only apply to brown eyed people, and then defend that very odd interpretation, am I still a defender of the first amendment?
    - mLuby 4y ago
      If you interpret the 4th amendment's "papers" to mean only tree-based sheets, not documents which might be electronic, are you really a defender of the 4th amendment? > The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated…
      - cperciva 4y ago
        If you want to be etymologically pedantic, "papers" should mean only sheets of papyrus.
- dionian 4y ago
  "well-regulated" means "well-armed" or "well-equipped", not "well-regulated by laws". cf. https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/cons/wellregu.htm https://constitution.org/1-Constitution/cons/wellregu.htm See my other comment below about the precise legal definition of militia.
  - kristjansson 4y ago
    More like 'appropriately armed' or 'properly equipped', no? "well-armed" and "well-equipped" imply a surfeit of arms and equipment, whereas well-regulated connotes balance or homeostasis
  - ameister14 4y ago
    I don't think it's actually just arms and equipment. It means 'well-ordered.' It's the ability to call up organize and elect leadership from the people at need, among many other things. For example, Article I Section 8 provides Congress the power "To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;" It's in a similar manner that the 2nd should treat 'regulated' militias.
  - gjm11 4y ago
    That page neither argues that, nor supports the view that, "well-regulated" means well armed or well equipped. The page argues that it means something like "running well", but the examples they give seem to me to fit better with a slightly different meaning that also matches the etymology of the word (in Latin a regula is a rule; it comes from the word meaning to rule or govern). I think "well-regulated" means some combination of: well organized, well governed, well adjusted, well controlled. In the Second Amendment it may or may not have specifically the sense of "well organized/governed/adjusted/controlled by the nation's government". But it's definitely not just talking about a militia that has enough weapons, or a militia that is good at shooting the people it wants to shoot; a well-regulated militia is one that is well organized and that makes good choices about who to shoot and why. (It also seems clear to me that "well-regulated" is not there to be any part of the point of the Second Amendment. I think it's mentioned in passing, possibly exactly to reassure people who might otherwise worry that the 2A is trying to set things up so that armed mobs terrorize everyone. "For a free state to remain secure, it needs a militia -- yes, yes, of course it has to be a well regulated one -- and so the people must be able to have weapons.")
- xbar 4y ago
  I am sad about this set of facts about the ACLUs position. Longer than the ACLU has held its opinion, the Constitution and the writings of the Founders, both before and after its ratification, ascribe all of the rights in the Bill of Rights to individuals, including the 2nd Amendment specifically. I have long been an ACLU member and donor. Despite my differences of opinion on some matters, I have been grateful that they have fought in the name of rights in a great many cases. I do wish they would take a broader view on their mandate on Civil Liberties, today and tomorrow.
  - boppo1 4y ago
    >writings of the Founders... ascribe all of the rights in the Bill of Rights to individuals Can you point me in the direction of these writings?
    - briHass 4y ago
      The Federalist Papers, particularly those of Hamilton and Madison. Notably #84: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._84 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federalist_No._84 Ironically, Hamilton was both wrong and right here. He was right that by enumerating rights in the BoR that it has empowered the government to view those rights as the only ones that are untouchable (and not even that.) However, he was wrong that the COTUS would stand on its own to protect individual rights due to its strict limiting of the government's ability to infringe those natural rights -- which it very much has done.
    - xbar 4y ago
      “The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.” – Samuel Adams, Massachusetts Ratifying Convention, 1788 Later in life, even: “The Constitution of most of our states (and of the United States) assert that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed.” – Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Cartwright, 5 June 1824
  - woodruffw 4y ago
    > Longer than the ACLU has held its opinion, the Constitution and the writings of the Founders, both before and after its ratification, ascribe all of the rights in the Bill of Rights to individuals, including the 2nd Amendment specifically. This isn't even remotely true. The 10th Amendment, for example, explicitly concerns the rights of the states and not the individuals within them. The phrase "well-regulated militia" should be a giveaway to you: individual human beings are singular, not plural, and the concept of a "well-regulated individual" doesn't make much sense either in the language of the framers. We've so profoundly distorted the original language as to effectively erase "militia" entirely[1]. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/District_of_Columbia_v._Heller
sbierwagen 4y ago
If the ACLU stated that the 1st Amendment was written with racist intent, would you interpret this as the ACLU supporting it?
- xbar 4y ago
  - raarts 4y ago
    Proof that - just as good people sometimes do bad things - bad people can do good things.
  - dahfizz 4y ago
    And? Are you therefore anti 1st amendment?
    - xbar 4y ago
      No. I think the 1st amendment might be the most important and precious policy in the history of the world. I would disconnect framers from policy in such discussions--it is fallacy to do otherwise.
  - mecha_ghidorah 4y ago
    Sure, but did they write the first amendment with racist intent? It isn't as if everything a racist does is motivated by their racism, they aren't putting the kettle on to make some tea to really show those [insert racial minority here] what for, or buying new jeans to put [insert minority here] in there place. There aren't racists planting bushes in their garden specifically to be racist. They are just racist people planting bushes because they want bushes in their garden and the racism is entirely unrelated.
  - fortuna86 4y ago
    Not for the explicit purpose of protecting the racist institution of slavery. You know that, your comment was cheeky and in bad faith.
rayiner 4y ago
> But they recognize that the second amendment was written with racist intent - https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1419294620417155074 https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1419294620417155074 Remarkable. The Founders totes protected the right to bear arms because of "racism," and not because they had just used the right to bear arms to found for themselves a new country free of the British monarchy. That makes total sense. Collapsing the entire history of a nation into a narrative about a minority within the nation.
- doublepg23 4y ago
  > Collapsing the entire history of a nation into a narrative about a minority within the nation. That’s a very succinct way of putting it, thanks for this comment.
- jacobolus 4y ago
  You could start by listening to the interview in question https://soundcloud.com/aclu/do-black-people-have-the-right-to-bear-arms https://soundcloud.com/aclu/do-black-people-have-the-right-t.... Here is a review of the book https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/books/review/the-second-carol-anderson.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/books/review/the-second-c... or you could try reading the book if you want more details. American white southerners (and white northerners for that matter) were scared out of their minds about the possibility of a rebellion comparable to the Haitian Revolution, which was contemporaneous with (edit: to clarify, took place during the ratification of) the Bill of Rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution A guarantee that “well regulated” militias under local control would not be taken down by the federal government was certainly related to slavery. Maintaining wealthy landowners’ power and protecting from slave revolts or other uprisings of disempowered people was perhaps the #1 purpose of those local militias.
  - PolygonSheep 4y ago
    > American white southerners were scared out of their minds about the possibility of a rebellion comparable to the Haitian Revolution, which was contemporaneous with the Bill of Rights. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haitian_Revolution Wasn't a war for independence in which widespread civilian firearm ownership played a part in winning also kind of contemporaneous with the Bill of Rights?
ameister14 4y ago
>But they recognize that the second amendment was written with racist intent That's a pretty weird argument; I get the Patrick Henry thing with the Virginia Declaration of Rights but that doesn't even establish the 2nd amendment as we know it. Hell, we actually have the reasoning here in Federalist 46: "Besides the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation, the existence subordinate governments to which the people are attached, and by which the militia officers are appointed, forms a barrier against the enterprizes of ambition, more insurmountable than any which a simple government of any form can admit of. Notwithstanding the military establishments in the several kingdoms of Europe, which are carried as far as the public resources will bear, the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms. " I'll read her book to see what she thinks I suppose because she's a prominent historian and surely knows more than me but it still feels strange.
tannhauser23 4y ago
You're quoting the Nevada chapter of ACLU, now the parent organization. ACLU itself has consistently taken the position that the Second Amendment does not confer an individual right to own firearms. ACLU _has_ supported NRA in its lawsuit against New York State, which alleges that the state discriminated against the organization because of its pro-firearm views: https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/new-york-state-cant-be-allowed-stifle-nras-political-speech https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/new-york-state-cant-be...

mike00632 4y ago

To be fair to the ACLU, the interpretation of the Second Amendment as granting an individual the right to have personal guns independent of a militia is a very recent interpretation (Heller, 2008). It's also had disastrous consequences. It would be like expecting the ACLU to soon advocate against women's bodily rights in a few years because a new Supreme Court decision changed the long-held interpretation of the Constitution.

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javagram 4y ago
Correction: until 2008 in Heller, the Supreme Court had never clearly and definitively ruled the 2A is an individual right. It had previously referred to the 2A as an individual right in dicta (non binding opinions) that date back to the 19th century, and many courts and legislators back to the 19th century had also done so. The interpretation of the 2A as a “collective” right associated with membership in the national guard/militia is largely a creation of 20th century lawyers. That said, I personally believe the 2A as intended by the founders is likely no longer suited for the modern world and some amendment to limit its scope would be reasonable.
- dionian 4y ago
  According to US Code, a large portion of the regular people of the United States are members of an "unorganized" militia. https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/10/246
  - javagram 4y ago
    True, but those who say the 2A is a “collective” right for the militia would not usually say that any male aged 17 to 45 should be able to purchase an AR-15 via their membership in the unorganized militia and Selective Service card. The collective right concept attempts to turn the 2A right into the idea that Congress shouldn’t pass a law to take away weapons from its own soldiers and army, which makes very little sense.

devman0 4y ago

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eweise 4y ago
"people try to use 'free speech' as cover to rally for causes that marginalize, harass, and ultimately remove rights from others" Isn't that the point of the article? The ACLU used to promote free speech for Nazis. Now its political.
- s1artibartfast 4y ago
  *protect, not promote. There is a huge difference between allowing and endorsing, which is getting conflated in modern thought and discourse.
dionidium 4y ago
I don't accept that this is new. This has always been the tension in this debate. It was the tension when they supported the Nazi's right to march in Skokie and it was the tension for 200-years-worth of arguing about it before that. And it's a tension that the ACLU once took a clear (and extremely controversial) position on.
gameman144 4y ago
I hear the Paradox of Tolerance whipped out in discussions of how best to curb free speech before it harms others. I'm always genuinely curious about this, since it seems to me that this curb is already really well-defined: free speech does not imply free action inspired by that speech. We already have laws against speech which causes imminent and material harm (e.g. libel laws, incitement of violence), and beyond that it seems like the Paradox of Tolerance doesn't actually apply here: nobody is advocating that we should tolerate the whole slippery slope of action, most advocates (myself included) carve out tolerance explicitly for speech alone.
- spion 4y ago
  Speech inspires action. There is a lot of legally allowed action that can still cause plenty of harm, and speech can stimulate that action. I don't have a solution, but we can't pretend that speech isn't much more powerful in today's society - if it were the profession "social media influencer" would not exist. IMO we have systems today (social networks) that make previously unspreadable speech pathological by creating a brain-virus-spreading environment (which is why things go viral, literally). Furthermore the environment favors evolution towards short, poorly thought out, poorly reviewed, "engaging" (and enraging) yellow-press like content.

rajin444 4y ago

It’s a shame because society needs examples of institutions that represent values as important as free speech. If we want to move forward we have to tolerate nazi speeches as long as they obey the law. When institutions like that disappear it’s a lot harder for individuals to keep up the fight.

UnpossibleJim 4y ago
The hard thing about defending Nazi's marching is that people have to understand that it sets a precedent for the Black Power movement to march or women's rights movements to march or pro-choice movements to march. If you let these horrible people's rights be stripped away, then when a new power sits in the driver's seat, those causes that you care about can be stripped away because of the short sighted, greedy view taken. EDIT: changed "you" to "people"
- boc 4y ago
  “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it” The issue is, of course, the thorny problem of allowing illiberal speech. What would the above author say if someone told them: "I disagree with what you say, and I'll make it illegal to say and jail you for it in the future" Are you, the original author, supposed to defend their right to threaten your freedoms with your own life? From this paradox emerged the current debate over de-platforming and "free speech" because people are nervous that their liberties are at risk, and thus they shouldn't tolerate intolerance. Personally I think it's tricky. We have many, many examples of nations where illiberal leaders abused their freedom of expression to gain power only to pull up that protection behind them and become a dictator while crushing dissent. We really only have a few counter-examples (namely the United States) where free speech absolutism has survived multiple regimes. The model of free speech that is currently popular on the Right, namely freedom from public backlash as the result of open expression, is juvenile and not enumerated in the Bill of Rights. You have the right to say whatever you want from the perspective of the State, but you do not have the right to an audience or to escape the consequences of your speech. Nobody should ever be arrested for their political opinions, but this idea that the left has gone "woke" or mad by cancelling people they disagree with is simply their right as individuals. So long as the Government isn't making it illegal for you to appear on TV or have a cell phone provider (for example), there's no such thing as being cancelled by the government from a 1st amendment perspective. On the left there's a bit more nuanced debate that basically pressures private institutions to cancel and de-platform actors that the left feels are attacking the foundation of their institutions. This is all above-board from a legal perspective, but can feel illiberal because it is largely mob-rule. Nuance is discarded and lives can be ruined by accusations that aren't researched in-depth before being blasted out into the world of social media. Here there also needs to be restraint, but again it's not like Verizon is cancelling someone's cell phone access because they had a bad tweet. It's ironically a very capitalist movement where the fear of affiliation hurting the economics of a business causes them to release a statement or "cancel" someone for their speech. Turns out being a racist isn't a great marketing tactic in our capitalist world. In sum I think the danger to our democracy is still greater from actors who seek to use freedom of expression as a ladder to the top, and then kick away that ladder once in power. It's the biggest weakness of open democracies, and one that should be guarded against carefully. Thankfully a strong commitment and defense of the 1st Amendment from both parties should thwart strongman attempts. We need to make sure that political tradition stays alive.

slg 4y ago

>They've begun taking positions against individual civil rights... this has escalated to the point that I think they're often on the wrong side of 1a issues as well. Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another? A common example is the baker tasked with making a wedding cake for a gay couple. Should the baker have the civil right to practice their religion which does not condone gay marriage? Or should the gay couple have the civil right to not be discriminated against for their sexuality? You can't take a position in this situation without being against someone's civil rights. As the political environment in the US becomes more polarized, these conflicts become more common and the apolitical path becomes less tenable. EDIT: I wasn't trying to start a debate about this specific court case. But the fact that simply mentioning it did spark that debate basically proves my point. There is no universal agreed upon line between the civil rights of one individual and the civil rights of another. When these conflicts arise, the ACLU's work will be inherently political because an apolitical compromise is rarely possible.

ROTMetro 4y ago
For the record I am pro-gay marriage, but your example is BS. The baker in your example was willing to bake them a cake. They were never denied a cake. What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech. It would be the equivalent of going to a restaurant and asking for something non-standard and off menu (say change a meal to vegan or gluten free), being denied that, and then claiming the restaurant violated your rights. Or going to an artist who sells t-shirts with their standard art and saying they denied me service when they wouldn't let me commission a custom piece that they didn't like to content of.
- slg 4y ago
  >What the baker was not willing to do was bake them the exact cake that they wanted, claiming that fancier cakes were artistic expression and not the same as the standard priced on their menu cakes, and that forcing them to create an art piece cake they didn't want to make was the equivalent of compelled speech This is just semantics of a legal argument. It is not some universal truth that ordering off menu puts any additional ethical strain on someone. If the baker would make those customizations for a straight couple and not a gay couple then the civil rights of the gay couple are being infringed.

madengr 4y ago

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bliteben 4y ago

How can you understand a right being only collective? I bet you don't believe in a collective right to privacy?