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> Progressive causes are near and dear to my heart. I am a feminist and staunch Democrat. As a federal public defender turned law professor, I have spent my car

> Progressive causes are near and dear to my heart. I am a feminist and staunch Democrat. As a federal public defender turned law professor, I have spent my career trying to make change in a criminal legal system that is riven with racism and fundamentally unfair to those without status and financial resources. Yet, as someone who understands firsthand that the fundamental rights to free speech and due process exist only as long as competent lawyers are willing to vigorously defend extreme positions and people, I view the ACLU’s hard-left turn with alarm. It smacks of intolerance and choosing sides, precisely what a civil-liberties organization designed to defend the Bill of Rights is meant to oppose. What an incredibly level headed take. It's so level headed that it seems fake when projected onto the landscape of modern political discourse.

rayiner 4y ago
Lara Bazelon is a rigorous thinker and a staunch believer in procedural justice. This leads to heterodox takes like, for example, supporting Betsy DeVoss’s efforts to roll back Obama’s Title IX reforms: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/opinion/-title-ix-devos-democrat-feminist.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/opinion/-title-ix-devos-d.... (As a conservative, I disagree with more her than I agree with her, ironically including with respect to Title IX, where I agree with Obama for conservative reasons.)
- darkerside 4y ago
  I remember there being a ton of conversation about these issues. What happened to these reforms in particular?
  - rayiner 4y ago
    These are being promulgated by executive actions--the Department of Education issuing guidance using its authority over federal educational funding as the hook for enforcement. Thus they have been flipping back-and-forth between administrations. The Obama-era guidance was significantly rolled back by Trump, to include things like not allowing evidence to be admitted from a witness not subject to cross examination. Biden then undid certain parts of the Trump rule, specifically getting rid of the cross-examination requirement: https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/03/activists-experts-speak-on-biden-era-title-ix-changes https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/03/activists-e...
javajosh 4y ago
>It's so level headed that it seems fake when projected onto the landscape of modern political discourse. Yes, and we need more of this sort of thinking, from everyone capable of it. I believe we have to stop thinking that "keeping your head down" is a solution. It is not. We must challenge unfairness itself, even if, especially if it yields an outcome we would prefer. This means principle over loyalty, and it won't make you popular but it may save our civilization.
- throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
  Personally I'd like to get back to a world where the fate of civilization is not the responsibility of every individual to worry about on a daily basis. That same mindset is underneath all the polarization as well; are you really a good (or loyal or principled) person if you're not actively fighting for causes X, Y and Z? Could be correlation instead of causation though.
  - javajosh 4y ago
    I think you are misunderstanding. A healthy civilization is composed of a certain number of openly principled people. If your civilization has fallen below this threshold, it will suffer. But choosing to be an out-spoken, principled person is, I believe, always good on the basis of virtue alone. It's worth being that way no matter the current situation. It's roughly analogous to getting vaccinated.
    - blindmute 4y ago
      And what if one is an outspoken, principled person whose principals are opposite to yours, like being opposed to vaccination?
      - javajosh 4y ago
        We can choose to have a civil debate, and perhaps, one of us might even change their mind. And if we cannot agree, we can choose for ourselves. If we must agree, then we abide by the law, whether or not we think it is wise, and the loser can (and should) attempt to change the law.
monksy 4y ago
I'm not sure I agree with you that this is a levelheaded take. The individual identified with 2 different groups and defers the individual's personal beliefs. It's hard to see if the reason why he/she believes in these things as a personal stance or to maintain membership within those groups. Associating with groups, esp like these, means alignment to the groups priorities. I see this tribalism as part of what has really destroyed the modern political landscape.
- RC_ITR 4y ago
  The new definition of levelheaded is “straw man assertion I don’t back up with facts” then “somber toned analysis of straw man impacts” The internet revealed that facts are real, but interpretations are extremely up for grabs. I mean is is really a “hard left turn” to stop defending the KKK or is the author just living in a world where people don’t grasp how truly outside of contemporary society that the KKK operates in?
  - jimmydorry 4y ago
    In a world where accused KKK members are not allowed legal representation, the mere (unsubstantiated) accusation of being a ideological member of such a group becomes a weapon to end all discussion and silence the out group. Applying mob rules (as seen on Twitter and other social media) to the legal world is most certainly a step backwards from a civil liberties perspective.
    - RC_ITR 4y ago
      Yeah, the American right is definitely silenced in today's media landscape. I can think of dozens of people banned from every appearing on Fox News becasue they were accused of racism.
    - otterley 4y ago
      If only that were true, because pretty much everyone accused of being a bigot seems to still possess the ability and willingness to spout hatred and bigotry all over the TV, Internet, and the halls of Congress. Having your Twitter privileges taken away from you - if that happens to you at all - is hardly the end of the matter.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
jmyeet 4y ago
I don't see this as level-headed at all. This is really an extension of the "both sides" logical fallacy. It reminds me of Elon Musk's ridiculous tweet [1]. Why is this ridiculous? Because there is no extreme left in US politics. There's like 4 members of Congress you could consider leftist. The Democratic Party as it exists now is a center right party that makes just enough progressive noises to fundraise without actually doing anything legislatively. In the last 10 years the only things that have really changed are legalizing of gay marriage (long overdue), #MeToo, some attention to the institutional racism that black people continue to live under and a long overdue reevaluation of widespread transphobia. That's literally it. On the right, we reacted to the first black US president by electing a bona fide white supremacist [2]. The #1 show on the #1 "news" network openly pushes Nazi propaganda [3]. And what was the supposd left doing? Pelosi is campaigning for the only anti-choice Democrat in Congress [4] (ironically in Texas when the Supreme Court draft leaked). The right has been massively successful in creating wedge issues to make people care about things that don't matter (eg trans people in college sports) We've had 49 years to Federally codify Roe v. Wade but the supposed part of the Left has refused to do so despite numerous opportunities to do so. Which brings us back to the ACLU: what hard-left turn? [1]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144/photo/1 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144/phot... [2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people-on-both-sides/537012/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-d... [3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-gop-republican-party.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-gop-rep... [4]: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/23/nancy-pelosi-henry-cuellar/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/23/nancy-pelosi-henry-c...
- froggertoaster 4y ago
  > In the last 10 years the only things that have really changed are legalizing of gay marriage (long overdue), #MeToo, some attention to the institutional racism that black people continue to live under and a long overdue reevaluation of widespread transphobia. That's literally it. Um... that's literally it? Bad take my guy. Just because you can copy/paste links and make citations doesn't make your take any more true. It smacks of extreme ignorance. And saying things like "on the right, we reacted to the first black US president by electing a bona fide white supremacist" just discredits you further - this is a highly politically charged statement that tells on your positions (and frankly, your mental state).
rxhernandez 4y ago
It doesn't feel remotely level-headed. Just about anyone in my AP English class could have made all of that up 12 years ago. That is, using circular logic to defend something like freedom of speech is something I expect any high school senior to be able to do. What I would like to know is, why it's so important if, for most of us, for the best and most capable parts of our lives, we don't have anything that resembles free speech. In fact, we expect to have our income and Healthcare cutoff if we really speak our minds often in the workplace. What I would like to know is, why it's okay for a few people to lie about the gravity of a pandemic and cost us 1M of our countrymen. What I would like to know is, how countries just as capable as us manage to lead better lives despite not having free reign over discussions on Nazis. What I would like to know is, why the staunchest proponents of freedom of speech choose to hit that down vote button to push comments like mine into oblivion rather than have an honest set of questions seen. I haven't really heard anyone use anything but propaganda based circular logic or slippery slope fallacies to answer why unbridled free speech is necessary. Moreover, it's hard to believe there is much substance to people's positions on unbridled freedom of speech when people are so religious about it. It's hard to believe that we have the right answer when we don't allow an ounce of nuance in the discussion.
- gunfighthacksaw 4y ago
  Those countries don’t give you the freedom to get into a gunfight with a SWAT team though.
- blueprint 4y ago
  the 'slippery slope' is not a fallacy. they are real. I'm sure you'd agree if I cited some examples.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - MisterMower 4y ago
    All slopes are slippery. The real question is to what degree. Some slopes are far more slick than others.
tehwebguy 4y ago
Weirdly enough I don't see anything the ACLU is doing in the article that's particularly left or even progressive, just barely Democrat. My guess is there's 100x as much money available to an org fighting for a particular party's most important items at a given moment vs actually looking for free speech violations.
- randbox 4y ago
  Yes, the level-headed take is that an organization has not taken a "hard-left turn" unless they are calling for redistributing the land and cancelling the debt.
  - crmd 4y ago
    They are based in the United States of America which is a relatively conservative country.
    - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
      Unless your baseline is "Nordic countries" or similar, the US is pretty far to the left. This is true regardless of whether you look at the size of the government, relative to the economy or where it sits on the spectrum between ethno-nationalist vs self-criticism/openness to outsiders. The US has a much larger than average sized government spending vs the size of its economy and it takes in three times more immigrants per year than any other country. By comparison, China, Japan, India and other major world powers are considerably further to the right. Even influential small countries such as Israel and Singapore are also a bit more conservative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...
      - spupe 4y ago
        > Unless your baseline is "Nordic countries" or similar, the US is pretty far to the left. How about most of Europe and Latin America? It is hard to define what "left" means nowadays but it is telling that you believe the "size of the government", as defined by mostly military spending, can consist as a checkbox for being part of the left.
RickJWagner 4y ago
For me, this was the 'whoa!' paragraph "... in 2018, the ACLU spent $800,000 on a campaign ad for Stacey Abrams during her run for governor in Georgia and $1 million in an attack-ad campaign against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings." There's more of the same, but it's enough to get the picture. That's all you need to know. The ACLU is not about fairness for everyone.
- toomuchtodo 4y ago
  ACLUs’ political donations aside, the world is not fair, and some are playing to win to inflict suffering on others. Arguing for fairness for everyone doesn’t necessarily mean you want fairness; it can also mean you’re looking for a system vulnerability to exploit. Revealed intent matters. I would not enable fairness for someone attempting to harm a family member, a loved one, the general public, or myself, for example. To do so would be to empower their harm projection.
- arrosenberg 4y ago
  They aren’t the American Fairness Union. Stacey Abrams is a proponent of expanding civil liberties. Brett Kavanaugh has repeatedly demonstrated contempt for them, exemplified by the coming decision that overturns Roe.
  - Spivak 4y ago
    Yeah, this thread it wild to me. Are we really gonna both sides this and pretend that candidates who openly and proudly oppose the liberties that the ACLU fights for are somehow equivalent? The ACLU can’t just sue for liberties that require legislation be passed, that is unless you’re in favor with more legislating from the bench. And in that case they have to support politicians that will further their mission.
  - raxxorraxor 4y ago
    I probably don't agree with Brett Kavanaugh but I do certainly believe he was subjected to an extended and transparent political smear campaign. I don't think it is a good picture for an organisation for civil liberties to partake here and if they are connected to that it is a bit worse than a bad look.
smsm42 4y ago
I remember when this approach was considered normal, and even people that were unable to raise to it at least tried to fake it. I'm not being facetious here, I really remember it, and I'm not even that old. I wish those times would return one day.
yowzadave 4y ago
The game-theory problem is: unilateral disarmament is a recipe for losing in today's political world. If progressives choose not to use the tools available for them to exercise power, you can be sure that conservatives won't make the same mistake. Could one convince conservatives to give up a supreme court seat? Because that's an entire branch of government (and perhaps the most powerful) that is likely to be controlled by conservatives for the rest of our lifetimes. Likewise, the Senate awards outsized power to rural states; what are the odds that conservatives would agree to a more equal representation? That they would vote for a federal ban on gerrymandering? Historically conservatives have been more strategic at preserving their political power; it's hard to see how we overcome many of the current dysfunctions the US is facing.
- galaxyLogic 4y ago
  Right. One party is fighting for fairness and democracy, the other for domination and autocracy. But I believe it is still possible to be fair by those who fight for fairness, and to be democratic by those who fight for democracy. And they can still win, eventually. It is called progress and it has been going on for centuries.
  - KMag 4y ago
    I think both major parties have pretty strong authoritarian streaks that they show in different ways. I'm a registered Democrat, and I agree that the authoritarian streak in the Republican party is stronger and more dangerous at the moment. However, I think it's also dangerous to ignore the authoritarian tendencies in the Democratic party.
    - galaxyLogic 4y ago
      Good point. If authoritarians could they of course would take over the Democratic Party totally. As you know Republican Party used to be the one opposing slavery. It's like Putin is really not against USA. He is only against USA as long as he is not its for-life president. And he loves democracy as longs as he is the only one who can decide what democracy means.
raxxorraxor 4y ago
True, I had my doubts after the initial introduction. Although I don't understand the remark about extreme positions that need and get legal defense. Because those statements are indeed the ones needing it the most and what is considered extreme can change on a day to day basis. But the essence is correct. What I find most interesting about some of these "left" causes are that they don't argue for any liberties. They most often do the exact opposite and advocate putting people under new rules. I think that is missing the mark. Freedom of speech always needs defendants and that will never change. But that is not what the ACLU is doing.

rayiner 4y ago

Lara Bazelon is a rigorous thinker and a staunch believer in procedural justice. This leads to heterodox takes like, for example, supporting Betsy DeVoss’s efforts to roll back Obama’s Title IX reforms: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/opinion/-title-ix-devos-democrat-feminist.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/04/opinion/-title-ix-devos-d.... (As a conservative, I disagree with more her than I agree with her, ironically including with respect to Title IX, where I agree with Obama for conservative reasons.)

darkerside 4y ago
I remember there being a ton of conversation about these issues. What happened to these reforms in particular?
- rayiner 4y ago
  These are being promulgated by executive actions--the Department of Education issuing guidance using its authority over federal educational funding as the hook for enforcement. Thus they have been flipping back-and-forth between administrations. The Obama-era guidance was significantly rolled back by Trump, to include things like not allowing evidence to be admitted from a witness not subject to cross examination. Biden then undid certain parts of the Trump rule, specifically getting rid of the cross-examination requirement: https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/03/activists-experts-speak-on-biden-era-title-ix-changes https://www.browndailyherald.com/article/2022/03/activists-e...

javajosh 4y ago

>It's so level headed that it seems fake when projected onto the landscape of modern political discourse. Yes, and we need more of this sort of thinking, from everyone capable of it. I believe we have to stop thinking that "keeping your head down" is a solution. It is not. We must challenge unfairness itself, even if, especially if it yields an outcome we would prefer. This means principle over loyalty, and it won't make you popular but it may save our civilization.

throw_nbvc1234 4y ago
Personally I'd like to get back to a world where the fate of civilization is not the responsibility of every individual to worry about on a daily basis. That same mindset is underneath all the polarization as well; are you really a good (or loyal or principled) person if you're not actively fighting for causes X, Y and Z? Could be correlation instead of causation though.
- javajosh 4y ago
  I think you are misunderstanding. A healthy civilization is composed of a certain number of openly principled people. If your civilization has fallen below this threshold, it will suffer. But choosing to be an out-spoken, principled person is, I believe, always good on the basis of virtue alone. It's worth being that way no matter the current situation. It's roughly analogous to getting vaccinated.
  - blindmute 4y ago
    And what if one is an outspoken, principled person whose principals are opposite to yours, like being opposed to vaccination?
    - javajosh 4y ago
      We can choose to have a civil debate, and perhaps, one of us might even change their mind. And if we cannot agree, we can choose for ourselves. If we must agree, then we abide by the law, whether or not we think it is wise, and the loser can (and should) attempt to change the law.

monksy 4y ago

I'm not sure I agree with you that this is a levelheaded take. The individual identified with 2 different groups and defers the individual's personal beliefs. It's hard to see if the reason why he/she believes in these things as a personal stance or to maintain membership within those groups. Associating with groups, esp like these, means alignment to the groups priorities. I see this tribalism as part of what has really destroyed the modern political landscape.

RC_ITR 4y ago
The new definition of levelheaded is “straw man assertion I don’t back up with facts” then “somber toned analysis of straw man impacts” The internet revealed that facts are real, but interpretations are extremely up for grabs. I mean is is really a “hard left turn” to stop defending the KKK or is the author just living in a world where people don’t grasp how truly outside of contemporary society that the KKK operates in?
- jimmydorry 4y ago
  In a world where accused KKK members are not allowed legal representation, the mere (unsubstantiated) accusation of being a ideological member of such a group becomes a weapon to end all discussion and silence the out group. Applying mob rules (as seen on Twitter and other social media) to the legal world is most certainly a step backwards from a civil liberties perspective.
  - RC_ITR 4y ago
    Yeah, the American right is definitely silenced in today's media landscape. I can think of dozens of people banned from every appearing on Fox News becasue they were accused of racism.
  - otterley 4y ago
    If only that were true, because pretty much everyone accused of being a bigot seems to still possess the ability and willingness to spout hatred and bigotry all over the TV, Internet, and the halls of Congress. Having your Twitter privileges taken away from you - if that happens to you at all - is hardly the end of the matter.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

jmyeet 4y ago

I don't see this as level-headed at all. This is really an extension of the "both sides" logical fallacy. It reminds me of Elon Musk's ridiculous tweet [1]. Why is this ridiculous? Because there is no extreme left in US politics. There's like 4 members of Congress you could consider leftist. The Democratic Party as it exists now is a center right party that makes just enough progressive noises to fundraise without actually doing anything legislatively. In the last 10 years the only things that have really changed are legalizing of gay marriage (long overdue), #MeToo, some attention to the institutional racism that black people continue to live under and a long overdue reevaluation of widespread transphobia. That's literally it. On the right, we reacted to the first black US president by electing a bona fide white supremacist [2]. The #1 show on the #1 "news" network openly pushes Nazi propaganda [3]. And what was the supposd left doing? Pelosi is campaigning for the only anti-choice Democrat in Congress [4] (ironically in Texas when the Supreme Court draft leaked). The right has been massively successful in creating wedge issues to make people care about things that don't matter (eg trans people in college sports) We've had 49 years to Federally codify Roe v. Wade but the supposed part of the Left has refused to do so despite numerous opportunities to do so. Which brings us back to the ACLU: what hard-left turn? [1]: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144/photo/1 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1519735033950470144/phot... [2]: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-defends-white-nationalist-protesters-some-very-fine-people-on-both-sides/537012/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/08/trump-d... [3]: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-gop-republican-party.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/30/us/tucker-carlson-gop-rep... [4]: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/23/nancy-pelosi-henry-cuellar/ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/03/23/nancy-pelosi-henry-c...

froggertoaster 4y ago
> In the last 10 years the only things that have really changed are legalizing of gay marriage (long overdue), #MeToo, some attention to the institutional racism that black people continue to live under and a long overdue reevaluation of widespread transphobia. That's literally it. Um... that's literally it? Bad take my guy. Just because you can copy/paste links and make citations doesn't make your take any more true. It smacks of extreme ignorance. And saying things like "on the right, we reacted to the first black US president by electing a bona fide white supremacist" just discredits you further - this is a highly politically charged statement that tells on your positions (and frankly, your mental state).

rxhernandez 4y ago

It doesn't feel remotely level-headed. Just about anyone in my AP English class could have made all of that up 12 years ago. That is, using circular logic to defend something like freedom of speech is something I expect any high school senior to be able to do. What I would like to know is, why it's so important if, for most of us, for the best and most capable parts of our lives, we don't have anything that resembles free speech. In fact, we expect to have our income and Healthcare cutoff if we really speak our minds often in the workplace. What I would like to know is, why it's okay for a few people to lie about the gravity of a pandemic and cost us 1M of our countrymen. What I would like to know is, how countries just as capable as us manage to lead better lives despite not having free reign over discussions on Nazis. What I would like to know is, why the staunchest proponents of freedom of speech choose to hit that down vote button to push comments like mine into oblivion rather than have an honest set of questions seen. I haven't really heard anyone use anything but propaganda based circular logic or slippery slope fallacies to answer why unbridled free speech is necessary. Moreover, it's hard to believe there is much substance to people's positions on unbridled freedom of speech when people are so religious about it. It's hard to believe that we have the right answer when we don't allow an ounce of nuance in the discussion.

gunfighthacksaw 4y ago
Those countries don’t give you the freedom to get into a gunfight with a SWAT team though.
blueprint 4y ago
the 'slippery slope' is not a fallacy. they are real. I'm sure you'd agree if I cited some examples.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- MisterMower 4y ago
  All slopes are slippery. The real question is to what degree. Some slopes are far more slick than others.

tehwebguy 4y ago

Weirdly enough I don't see anything the ACLU is doing in the article that's particularly left or even progressive, just barely Democrat. My guess is there's 100x as much money available to an org fighting for a particular party's most important items at a given moment vs actually looking for free speech violations.

randbox 4y ago
Yes, the level-headed take is that an organization has not taken a "hard-left turn" unless they are calling for redistributing the land and cancelling the debt.
- crmd 4y ago
  They are based in the United States of America which is a relatively conservative country.
  - AlchemistCamp 4y ago
    Unless your baseline is "Nordic countries" or similar, the US is pretty far to the left. This is true regardless of whether you look at the size of the government, relative to the economy or where it sits on the spectrum between ethno-nationalist vs self-criticism/openness to outsiders. The US has a much larger than average sized government spending vs the size of its economy and it takes in three times more immigrants per year than any other country. By comparison, China, Japan, India and other major world powers are considerably further to the right. Even influential small countries such as Israel and Singapore are also a bit more conservative. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_government_spending_as_percentage_of_GDP https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_governmen... https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigration-by-country https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/immigrati...
    - spupe 4y ago
      > Unless your baseline is "Nordic countries" or similar, the US is pretty far to the left. How about most of Europe and Latin America? It is hard to define what "left" means nowadays but it is telling that you believe the "size of the government", as defined by mostly military spending, can consist as a checkbox for being part of the left.

RickJWagner 4y ago

For me, this was the 'whoa!' paragraph "... in 2018, the ACLU spent $800,000 on a campaign ad for Stacey Abrams during her run for governor in Georgia and $1 million in an attack-ad campaign against Brett Kavanaugh during his Supreme Court confirmation hearings." There's more of the same, but it's enough to get the picture. That's all you need to know. The ACLU is not about fairness for everyone.

toomuchtodo 4y ago
ACLUs’ political donations aside, the world is not fair, and some are playing to win to inflict suffering on others. Arguing for fairness for everyone doesn’t necessarily mean you want fairness; it can also mean you’re looking for a system vulnerability to exploit. Revealed intent matters. I would not enable fairness for someone attempting to harm a family member, a loved one, the general public, or myself, for example. To do so would be to empower their harm projection.
arrosenberg 4y ago
They aren’t the American Fairness Union. Stacey Abrams is a proponent of expanding civil liberties. Brett Kavanaugh has repeatedly demonstrated contempt for them, exemplified by the coming decision that overturns Roe.
- Spivak 4y ago
  Yeah, this thread it wild to me. Are we really gonna both sides this and pretend that candidates who openly and proudly oppose the liberties that the ACLU fights for are somehow equivalent? The ACLU can’t just sue for liberties that require legislation be passed, that is unless you’re in favor with more legislating from the bench. And in that case they have to support politicians that will further their mission.
- raxxorraxor 4y ago
  I probably don't agree with Brett Kavanaugh but I do certainly believe he was subjected to an extended and transparent political smear campaign. I don't think it is a good picture for an organisation for civil liberties to partake here and if they are connected to that it is a bit worse than a bad look.

smsm42 4y ago

I remember when this approach was considered normal, and even people that were unable to raise to it at least tried to fake it. I'm not being facetious here, I really remember it, and I'm not even that old. I wish those times would return one day.

yowzadave 4y ago

The game-theory problem is: unilateral disarmament is a recipe for losing in today's political world. If progressives choose not to use the tools available for them to exercise power, you can be sure that conservatives won't make the same mistake. Could one convince conservatives to give up a supreme court seat? Because that's an entire branch of government (and perhaps the most powerful) that is likely to be controlled by conservatives for the rest of our lifetimes. Likewise, the Senate awards outsized power to rural states; what are the odds that conservatives would agree to a more equal representation? That they would vote for a federal ban on gerrymandering? Historically conservatives have been more strategic at preserving their political power; it's hard to see how we overcome many of the current dysfunctions the US is facing.

galaxyLogic 4y ago
Right. One party is fighting for fairness and democracy, the other for domination and autocracy. But I believe it is still possible to be fair by those who fight for fairness, and to be democratic by those who fight for democracy. And they can still win, eventually. It is called progress and it has been going on for centuries.
- KMag 4y ago
  I think both major parties have pretty strong authoritarian streaks that they show in different ways. I'm a registered Democrat, and I agree that the authoritarian streak in the Republican party is stronger and more dangerous at the moment. However, I think it's also dangerous to ignore the authoritarian tendencies in the Democratic party.
  - galaxyLogic 4y ago
    Good point. If authoritarians could they of course would take over the Democratic Party totally. As you know Republican Party used to be the one opposing slavery. It's like Putin is really not against USA. He is only against USA as long as he is not its for-life president. And he loves democracy as longs as he is the only one who can decide what democracy means.

raxxorraxor 4y ago

True, I had my doubts after the initial introduction. Although I don't understand the remark about extreme positions that need and get legal defense. Because those statements are indeed the ones needing it the most and what is considered extreme can change on a day to day basis. But the essence is correct. What I find most interesting about some of these "left" causes are that they don't argue for any liberties. They most often do the exact opposite and advocate putting people under new rules. I think that is missing the mark. Freedom of speech always needs defendants and that will never change. But that is not what the ACLU is doing.