lawyer probs: the growing number of people suddenly surprised that the aclu represents shitty people as well as good people because they didn’t have to read a bunch of aclu cases in law school.
That’s why I enjoy the ACLU’s work so much. You have to REALLY love civil rights to stand up for some of the shitty people the ACLU represents. Without them bringing those tough cases, though, where would the rest of us be?
The First Amendment equally protects those we agree with and those we disagree with. It protects Civil Rights marches and BLM protestors. It also protects the most deplorable among us.
Without the ACLU, and without the First Amendment protecting the most heinous and disgusting views out there, the Constitution also wouldn’t protect the protests and speakers we hold most dear.
This isn’t about right or wrong, or political beliefs. This is about policy. Our Constitution made the choice to protect ALL speech equally, lest ANY speech, good or bad, be suppressed.
THIS. I think everything you need to know about the importance/purity of principle of the ACLU is that I saw a meme on Facebook where someone had like Photoshopped an ACLU logo onto a burning office building and with some terrible caption like “We know what to do with Nazi sympathizers” and my immediate internal response was “the ACLU would defend your right to post that if the government tried to punish you for it. All the way to the Supreme Court if necessary.”
I don’t think there’s anything I’m so purely dedicated to the way the ACLU is dedicated to protecting freedom of speech.
The ACLU is pure lawful neutral. They’re here to make sure everyone gets equal protection under the law, even if that means defending people they’d otherwise like to punch in the face.
I think the lawful neutral label is really really apt, and also a good way to point out the precise way in which active liberals have sort of gotten the wrong idea about the ACLU.
It seems like a lot of people have kind of imagined the ACLU as a chaotic good. Righteous defenders of the left’s favorite causes, turning the very power structures that allow or actively create oppression (legislatures, the justice system) into tools against that oppression. And it’s totally understandable why, especially if you’re pretty young and have just gotten into liberal campaigns in the last 5-10 years why you might think of them that way. Because you’d see them doing these high profile cases and campaigns for things like LGBT rights and fighting the travel bans, and there are plenty of organizations that sort of do fit in to that type of mold–SPLC, HRC, Emily’s List, etc., all on varying points on the lawful to chaotic spectrum–so it’s easy to think it makes sense to lump the ACLU in with them.
But you’re right that the ACLU is much more of a lawful neutral, ESPECIALLY in the free speech arena. They’re just there doing the really not glamorous work of refereeing to make sure that oppressive government actors can’t silence anybody, which makes sure that organizations like SPLC and HRC have the ability to do their work without interference.
This little fruit bat needed a helping hand. After an emergency C-section, Lucas needed to be hand-raised to survive. Now at 8 months old, Lucas is learning to fly so he can join the rest of the Rodrigues fruit bat colony. Learn more about Lucas’ storyhere.
Actually, there’s another important point to be made here: bravery and evil are not mutually exclusive. Orcs are brave. Stormtroopers are brave. Nazis are brave. Every one of these groups contained people (not all, but many) that sacrificed their lives in the name of what they thought was the greater good, and pushed on even when everything was hell. Trying to tell people that none of the bad guys were brave is inaccurate, and the loved ones of the bad guys are going to *know* that it’s inaccurate.
Simply feeling and performing bravery DOES NOT ENSURE THAT YOU’RE ON THE RIGHT SIDE. It’s often necessary in the service of the good, but it is not and shouldn’t be a target or a reliable indicator. If you want to reliably do good, then you have no option but to think critically, do anything you can to see through the neverending storm of propaganda, and question everything. And this obligation does not ever fully let up, because you might find out at any moment that you’re on the wrong side.
No matter what side you’re on, and no matter how good or evil your cause, bravery very often feels the same from the inside. You might truly feel like you need to find a way to sacrifice or contribute, and feel guilty for not doing so. But you know what? Staying home, eating an entire tub of ice cream, and jerking off is *far more virtuous* than pushing yourself to the limits and even laying down your life for the good of a nation that wants to be able to keep slaves.
I remember a bit of a scandal around 200X where somebody said the terrorists flying the planes on 9/11 weren’t cowards, because they were clearly willing to give up their lives for their beliefs and whoa boy did that not make people feel happy.
But that’s always how it works – we are glorious and brave even when we invade and bomb them from ten thousand feet higher in the air than their weapons could ever reach and they are despicable and cowardly even when they take on the best equipped militaries in the world armed with two goats and a beat up martini rifle left over from the British invasion in the seventies. Eighteen-seventies.
yup. im willing to die for this is like, the definition of bravery no? like, im so brave im willing to go willingly to my death to achieve goals i believe in?
bravery is good in the way that intelligence is good, its not MORAL, the bad guys can be clever and the bad guys can be brave, if you assume theyre all stupid cowards you will underestimate them.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
You must be logged in to post a comment.