Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!rutgers!att!chinet!patrick
From: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Newsgroups: news.misc
Subject: Re: Freedom of hate
Message-ID: <8301@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 26 Apr 89 04:53:25 GMT
References: <14130@gryphon.COM< <8132@chinet.chi.il.us< <1216@frog.UUCP< <8200@chinet.chi.il.us< <755@maths.tcd.ie} <8251@chinet.chi.il.us> <767@maths.tcd.ie>
Reply-To: patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson)
Organization: Chinet - Public Access Unix
Lines: 67

In article <767@maths.tcd.ie> dbell@maths.tcd.ie (Derek Bell) writes:

>		What happened with Ramparts magazine? Sounds like the ACLU is
>well intentioned but very inflexible, IMHO. 

I think Ramparts is still around, published in the San Fransisco area, or
maybe southern California. 'Rampart' is a word of French origin which 
is a rather archaic term used by the military of two hundred years ago. It
is an embankment of earth with a wall around it, serving as a watching post
and place to hide from enemy fire.  Roughly translated from its French
usage into English it would be 'a place to watch and guard the fort'. The
only use of the word I have ever seen, other than as the title to that
magazine is in the fourth line of the first stanza of Francis Scott Key's
poem, 'The Star Spangled Banner' --

   (3) Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
   (4) O'er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming?

The last issue I saw of the magazine, a few years ago, was considerably
toned down from what they used to publish during the Viet Nam era. My
first aquaintence with the magazine was around 1968, and at last look, it
had, uh, 'matured', let's say.

Like yourself, I think the ACLU means well, but they are horribly naive
and misguided at times. I am convinced they do believe anarchy is required
in America. The fact that an organization like ACLU, which devotes it time
and effort to protecting and preserving the Constitution of the United
States -- ** as they interpret that precious document ** comes under the 
hellfire and damnation that they do says more about the organization than
it does about the constitution they seek to preserve. 

Yes, they are very inflexible at times. They are great at winning battles
while losing larger wars. They seem to go out of their way at times to
alienate people who could help them and who share many, if not all goals in
common. 

It gets pretty dangerous playing the game called 'What The Founder Fathers
Intended When They Wrote The Constitution/Bill of Rights'. I don't really
know, but at least I make no claims of some superior knowledge on the matter.
But I really don't think in their wildest reveries they intended to see
their documents misused to cover every bizarre social illness in an America
two centuries later, as the ACLU seems to imply. I think the ACLU will be
one main reason why in the next fifty to seventy five years the American
public is going to call a Constitutional Convention and angrily demand that
large parts of the Bill of Rights be abolished. Very sad and frightening,
but very likely, I think.

Large numbers of people will get so tired of having their noses rubbed in
the mess made by liberal court decisions they will finally get a belly full
of it all and say "If *that* is what the Constitution is about; if *that*
is what it means, then we don't want any. Revoke it all."

And that is how you win battles while losing larger wars. We train dogs to
go to the bathroom in an acceptable way by rubbing their noses in their
mess. I think ACLU lawyers and federal judges should have their noses rubbed
in their messes also. Let them all live in the inner city areas of Chicago,
New York and El Lay. Let them get mugged and raped a few times; maybe have
their homes burglarized by someone on a drug binge.

Then let's all sit down again in a month or two, and I will try to listen
patiently once again while they tell me about civil liberties for animals 
who out of charity are referred to as 'human beings'. 

-- 
Patrick Townson 
  patrick@chinet.chi.il.us / ptownson@bu-cs.bu.edu / US Mail: 60690-1570 
  FIDO: 115/743 / AT&T Mail: 529-6378 (!ptownson) /  MCI Mail: 222-4956