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> Many thanks to FIRE for representing me in this case. I used to donate to the ACLU, but they have completely lost their way. I'd encourage more people who c
by nostromo 4y ago
> Many thanks to FIRE for representing me in this case.
I used to donate to the ACLU, but they have completely lost their way.
I'd encourage more people who care about preserving free speech and expression to give money to FIRE. They are the new ACLU and need financial resources to do what the ACLU used to do.
https://www.thefire.org/ https://www.thefire.org/
- gsk22 4y agoHow has the ACLU lost its way? Is there a specific incident that happened? I don't follow these things too closely, but my perception is they continue to do the same kind of work they always have.
- LudwigNagasena 4y agoOnce a Bastion of Free Speech, the A.C.L.U. Faces an Identity Crisis https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
- nostromo 4y agoAlso: The ACLU Has Lost Its Way https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnny-depp-amber-heard-trial/629808/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn... The ACLU taking donations to silently support Amber Heard suing Johnny Depp is so far afield of their mission it’s unforgivable.
- screye 4y agoHere are a couple of reference documents [1][2] tl;dr : the ACLU used to be a free speech absolutist organization to the point of self-sabotage. (eg: Jewish ACLU lawyers defending Neo-Nazis). In that sense, it went from a libertarian organization to a progressive activist organization that now supports cases that suppress civil liberties as long as the cause supports their (faux activist?) progressive agenda. [1]https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnny-depp-amber-heard-trial/629808/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/05/aclu-johnn... [2]https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
- justin66 4y agoThe ACLU was never a "libertarian organization." It is an accident of language that in modern American politics "libertarians" and "civil libertarians" sound more similar than they actually are.
- cameldrv 4y agoIt's only self sabotage if you define self narrowly. They chose that case because it so strongly demonstrated the true principle they were defending. From a practical standpoint, the Nazi group they were defending didn't amount to anything, and they never even held their march after going to all the work of taking the case to the Supreme Court.
- pfannkuchen 4y agoI assume you aren’t suggesting it was astroturfed? I have never heard that claimed.
- cameldrv 4y agoNot at all. It was just a strategic choice. It’s hard to say what they would have done had it been something like the actual Nazi party though with thousands of brownshirts etc.
- fzeroracer 4y agoThe specific incident was the Charlottesville protests and consequent murders by white supremacists. They had stepped in to defend Jason Kessler's argument against moving the protest (where the city wanted to move the protest because they correctly identified the violence that would occur) and made a ton of PR gaffes during this time. As a result the ACLU ended up losing a ton of support both externally and internally because they had played a part in an event that was obviously going to turn violent.
- fortran77 4y agoThey also support compelled speech in 2023, when it comes to pronouns, etc. https://twitter.com/kittypurrzog/status/1449545013684146176 https://twitter.com/kittypurrzog/status/1449545013684146176
- PuppyTailWags 4y agoThis definition of compelled speech is inherently politicizing an apolitical thing. I find it super strange to refer to using someone's gender as compelled speech. Sometimes I mistake a man for a woman, especially long-haired men from behind, and if the man corrects me and asks me to refer to him as a man, I don't throw a fit that my civil liberties are being violated. Certainly if I kept insisting on calling my male student she/her pronouns in kindergarten because he happened to have long hair and I got in trouble for it, this isn't compelling my speech any more than if I got in trouble for refusing to use "John" if a co-worker says "Hey don't call me Jonathan please, I go by John". I don't see why we should hold trans or nonbinary people to a standard we don't hold everyone else: if I call someone P and they correct me and ask me to call them Q, I don't think it's compelled speech.
- jl6 4y agoThe compulsion element arises if you risk being fired for not using the words you are being asked to use.
- 4y ago
- justin66 4y ago> They are the new ACLU They do not claim to handle more than a fraction of what the ACLU does (which is fine): https://www.thefire.org/about-us https://www.thefire.org/about-us Versus the ACLU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union#Positions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_Liberties_Union...
- msravi 4y agoWow. These are the free-speech rankings for colleges in the US: https://rankings.thefire.org/rank https://rankings.thefire.org/rank Of the top 6 that are rated "Good," L=Liberal to C=Conservative ratios are telling: 1. University of Chicago, L:C = 4 : 1 2. Kansas State University, L:C = 1 : 1.3 3. Purdue (main campus), L:C = 1.1 : 1 4. Mississippi State Univ, L:C = 1 : 1.9 5. Oklahoma State Univ, L:C = 1 : 1.2 6. Claremont McKenna, L:C = 5.2 : 1 The bottom 6 (Poor, Very poor or abysmal): 198. Yale, L:C = 5.2 : 1 199. Skidmore, L:C = 11.8 : 1 200. Georgetown, L:C = 3.3 : 1 201. Rensselaer Poly, L:C = 2.3 : 1 202. U. of Pennsylvania, L:C = 5.9 : 1 203. Columbia, L:C = 6.8 : 1 Looks like there's been a flip in the definitions of liberal and conservative, at least wrt free-speech
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- packetlost 4y ago> Looks like there's been a flip in the definitions of liberal and conservative, at least wrt free-speech I mean, yeah? There is definitely a side more concerned with suppressing speech they consider reprehensible than the other and those roles have definitely switched in the last like 30 years.
- TechBro8615 4y agoGlenn Greenwald writes (rants) about this often. The same phenomenon is observable in polls of institutional loyalty ("how much do you trust the FBI/CIA/NSA?") with results starkly inverted from twenty years ago. In fact, this is so central to Greenwald's general thesis that the image of this graph was his Twitter cover photo for a long time. Liberals have become cheerleaders for the same security state they warned against for years. The FBI has not changed tactics; they're still entrapping autistic people as "terrorists," but now they've switched their focus from Muslims to Republicans, they've silenced their liberal critics, who are happy to trust the police state so long as it furthers their agenda. The funny thing to me, is that the data objectively shows this, and Greenwald has good reason to rant about it: he has been one of the most vocal liberal critics of the security state for two decades, yet now finds himself alone, suddenly surrounded by conservatives while angry liberals call him a right wing grifter who's lost his way. But in fact it's the opposite; Greenwald has been steadfast in his principled opposition, whereas his previously stalwart allies have abandoned him in favor of reactionary politics that fits their confirmation bias.
- busterarm 4y agoI have similar feelings about the EFF after a few years ago they blatantly misrepresented a bill and used a bunch of anti Trump propaganda to do it. Basically all of the EFF lawyers are in real tight with the Library of Congress, which happens to have some oversight issues (as in they have almost none) that bipartisan efforts in Congress are trying to correct. I forget the exact details but basically there was an appointed position with no accountability to anyone that Congress was at least trying to make replaceable by the Executive branch. The EFF ran all kinds of FUD through their mailing lists to try to keep the position unaccountable to anyone, which in my opinion is behavior running in direct oppoisition to the second letter in their acronym.
- puffoflogic 4y agoPlease also look at the Institute for Justice (ij.org) and Pacific Legal Foundation (pacificlegal.org).