Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!sugar!ficc!jeffd From: jeffd@ficc.uu.net (jeff daiell) Newsgroups: news.misc Subject: Re: Freedom of hate Summary: ACLU Message-ID: <3994@ficc.uu.net> Date: 27 Apr 89 13:31:09 GMT References: <14130@gryphon.COM< <8132@chinet.chi.il.us< <1216@frog.UUCP< <8301@chinet.chi.il.us> Organization: Ferranti International Controls Lines: 77 In article <8301@chinet.chi.il.us>, patrick@chinet.chi.il.us (Patrick A. Townson) writes: > .. 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. Actually, many, if not most, ACLUers are downright authoritarian when it comes to economic freedom. And for many years the ACLU was pro-gun control, scarcely an anarchistic position. > The fact that an organization like ACLU, > comes under the > hellfire and damnation that they do says more about the organization than > it does about the constitution they seek to preserve. I would think it actually says more about the people who only want the Bill of Rights to apply to ideas/actions they approve of (this is not saying you're one of those, Patrick -- but I've run across the type all too ofen. For instance, while it's not surprising that many people think only two political parties should be allowed -- that nonsense is drummed into us from 1st grade, if not earlier -- I've been shocked and frightened by the number that think only *one* [theirs, of course, be it the Democratic or Republican party] should be allowed on the ballot). > > > 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. While I'm irked by the ACLU's seeming *preference* for offbeat defendants, I'm all for their *willingness* to defend the unusual. First, on ethical grounds -- Human rights are universal -- and second, on practical grounds. As Ayn Rand put it, when The State wants to violate a right, it starts with the most socially unacceptable elements and violates their rights ... but then moves on to the rest of us. If we can prevent politicians from repressing the leftwing crazies and the rightwing crazies, then the rest of us should be fairly safe! > > 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. If we adopted the ACLU's drug legalization program, homes wouldn't be burglarized for drug money, because drugs wouldn't be a Mafia monopoly with monopoly prices. Nor would we have pushers trying to hook our children. When's the last time somebody broke into a house for booze money -- or hung around a school yard selling whiskey? > > 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'. I think the problem is not the ACLU's insistence on due process. I think it's lenient sentencing (the two are *not* the same!), and the system's obsession with victimless crimes (at one point in Texas, arrests for public drunkeness [not disturbing the peace or similar acts] were some 50% of *all* arrests! And how many police hours are spent closing down penny-ante poker games, raiding adult bookstores, busting folks for selling marijuana, hauling prostitutes to the stationhouse, and so on -- hours that could be spent patrolling streets and parks and thus discouraging burglars, rapists, and muggers? A freer society would be a safer society. Jeff Daiell -- ________ In Hoc Signo |__/__/_ Vinces __/__/_|