Those students have more guts than the stuffed shirts at the major newspapers in this country. The editors and publishers of the New York Times, Washingtn Post, LA Times, Chicago Tibune, Boston Globe, etc are all great defenders of the First Amendment when they are not risking anything themselves. OK, maybe a weekend in jail, followed by a 7 figure book deal, they will be real profiles in courage. But face down real repression and censorship, where violent fanatics now dictate to the media what they can print? No, they'd prefer to write angry editorials about Dick Cheney. I understand their decisions, who wants to get killed over a cartoon, but I'd prefer a little less backpatting from the media going forward.
Freedom of Speech down the tubes, ACLU nowhere to be found
- Thread starter TGregg
- Start date
The ACLU doesn't 'love' perverts any more than the Nazis and terrorists they also defend.
When the government sets out to eradicate our civil liberties, the obvious game plan is for them to go after the least popular citizens first. When attempting to erase our Constitutional right to Free Speech, do you think the government will go after pictures of adorable newborn babies and cute kittens playing with yarn?
No. They'll go after the creepiest, most isolated, most repulsive types of speech first: Perverts, racists, and other widely hated groups. Once the government gets away with violating the civil rights of various isolated creeps, <b>you</b> are next. Which is exactly what the ACLU is trying to prevent by vigorously defending the rights of the most repulsive members of society.
I don't know that for a fact.
Good points about the difficult nature of the fight to protect civil liberties. But is it not the responsibility of our government to selectively deny rights to those individuals who break our democratically established laws?
You wouldn't argue that our civil liberties are trodden on when a murderer is deprived of his right to freedom of movement in prison. So how are our civil liberties hurt when a convicted sex offender is, as part of his punishment, required to be registered as such?
On another tack, are our civil liberties hurt when foreign nationals, who were taken prisoner in combat against US forces, are held without trial in military prisons?
These are the people that the ACLU defends, and these issues have no relation to the protection of the civil liberties of law abiding US citizens.
Hofficita, you're right. The ACLU is notorious for pushing it a bit too far. This may be a deliberate effort to give the government a hard time for the sake of giving the government a hard time.
...Which could be a pretty logical thing to do.
...Which could be a pretty logical thing to do.
The ACLU seems to pick and choose it's fights very carefully when it comes to religion.
-In many instances they do not defend christianity but will defend Judaism and islam in public display, now keep in mind I'm not religious but common sense would tell you if it's ok for one it should be ok for all and this is NOT the way the ACLU treats things.
Also, the ACLU keeps pushing and pushing and all it's doing is pissing people off and they are now pushing back as can be demonstrated by the Thomas Moore center and other organizations that defend religious expression in courtrooms, schools and on public property and they are winning.
So the result of the left insistence on trying to remove everything religious from the public forum is actually backfiring on them because they are now beginning to lose and since Bush is appointing Supreme Court judges who will be more sympathetic to the religious right you can all thank the ACLU and other left wing organizations for an INCREASE in displays of religion in our society.
They should have just kept their mouth's shut about it or at least didn't try so hard and piss so many people off about it because we will all pay the price.
-In many instances they do not defend christianity but will defend Judaism and islam in public display, now keep in mind I'm not religious but common sense would tell you if it's ok for one it should be ok for all and this is NOT the way the ACLU treats things.
Also, the ACLU keeps pushing and pushing and all it's doing is pissing people off and they are now pushing back as can be demonstrated by the Thomas Moore center and other organizations that defend religious expression in courtrooms, schools and on public property and they are winning.
So the result of the left insistence on trying to remove everything religious from the public forum is actually backfiring on them because they are now beginning to lose and since Bush is appointing Supreme Court judges who will be more sympathetic to the religious right you can all thank the ACLU and other left wing organizations for an INCREASE in displays of religion in our society.
They should have just kept their mouth's shut about it or at least didn't try so hard and piss so many people off about it because we will all pay the price.