As they say, “Put your money where your mouth is.”
Some people think the ACLU should fight specifically for such organizations to make a point that everyone, even hateful bigots, have the same rights.
Personally? I'm on the fence. On the one hand, given limited resources & all else being equal in two cases, why not choose the group of people who are nicer? On the other hand, if you choose the hateful group & set a precedent that even the most hateful people have the same set of rights as others, it's close to irrefutable in future cases with nicer people that they get those rights too.
Historically, the ACLU is one of the most well known organizations to defend free speech regardless of label. They should not create such a gaping vulnerability in their strategy.
Don't announce to the world that any case involving the word "crypto" will not be defended. Or the words "carpentry", "space", or "elephant". The issue should be free speech, not miscellaneous labels.
I think "failing to support" in the grandparent comment is too weak for some. This is Glenn Greenwald on a recent ACLU amicus brief[1]:
>> This is the first time, at least to my knowledge, that ACLU is explicitly arguing in court that the First Amendment's free speech clause has been interpreted *too broadly* by courts, and are advocating *a more restrictive view* of what free speech means.
I'm not sure about that case in particular, but on your question of
> why not choose the group of people who are nicer?
I'd say the grim batman ACLU of my alternate-history fanfic cares more about precedent than it does about defendants.
1: https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1449739621563346944
>> Mr. Cross spoke in opposition to Policy 8040 at a school board meeting, and refused to comply with the provision...
>> While the teachers may disagree with the policy, they do not have the right to violate it in their capacity as K-12 teachers in the Loudoun County school system.
The brief was unclear about whether the teacher refused to comply in the meeting or in another circumstance, and I don't care enough to check sorry.
FWIW, I'm mostly in favour of at-will employment, and think that they should be able to suspend or get rid of him for any reason. And I'm in favour of school choice, and think that if the views of parents and teachers would be better reflected if the government weren't involved. And I'm a cynic, and believe that the only reason anyone's talking about a Virginia school is the governor's race, and it's all just entertainment for people living elsewhere.
On the one hand there's the teachers' free speech rights, freedom from compelled speech. On the other hand are the students' civil rights protecting against discrimination.
The ACLU in that situation has decided the later should prevail over the former when it pertains to government workers & their speech while on-the-job.
What if a white teacher spoke to the only black student in the room using his own version of AVE, and used his usual English for the rest of the class?
I don't know the answer, but I can understand the ACLU seeing a case where rights come into conflict and choosing a result that seems more just.
If your concern is specifically the ACLU's disagreement with recent Supreme Courts on the intended scope of Second Amendment rights, the EFF isn't going to address that either since it's out of scope for their mission. But that's in no way relevant to what Signal had to deal with here, an area in which I think ACLU and EFF are pretty well aligned.
The comments about the ACLU probably aren't about the second amendment. That's never been the ACLU's thing. It's probably about the recent backing away from the 1st amendment which has historically been the ACLU's domain.
NYT link covering the topic: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
Archive.org link in case you can't view the NYT link: https://web.archive.org/web/20211027082703/https://www.nytim...
https://www.aclu.org/news/lgbtq-rights/the-coordinated-attac...
Here's a recent NYT article discussing this change in the organization: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html
And sadly, the word 'nazi' has lost all of it's meaning in the last years, and has gone from swastika carrying Hitler supporters to someone who doesn't want illegals working below minimum wage to take his job.
I live in a small european country, and literally every foreign worker is lowering the wages of all the local workers - because why offer higher pay to get a local, if you can get some cheap foreigner to do it at minimum wage? And i'm talking about legal workers... if you take in account illegals, that are willing to work below minimum wage, the situation gets even shittier for locals.
https://lawandcrime.com/first-amendment/aclu-backs-n-j-woman...
[1] http://www.bayareaintactivists.org/sites/default/files/aclu_...
[2] https://www.aclunc.org/news/aclu-urges-court-invalidate-sf-c...
In 1978, the ACLU successfully defended the right of neo-Nazis to march in the predominantly Jewish town of Skokie, Illinois. This action reflected their commitment to free speech, regardless of how offensive the speech might be. The movie "Skokie" and documentary "Mighty Ira" are based on this event-- I highly recommend them because this is an important piece of U.S. history.
In contrast, the modern ACLU has backed away from this stance. A leaked ACLU memo[1] says that before they take a free speech case, they will consider the "context of the proposed speech; the potential effect on marginalized communities; the extent to which the speech may assist in advancing the goals of white supremacists or others whose views are contrary to our values; and the structural and power inequalities in the community in which the speech will occur."
[1] https://reason.com/2018/06/21/aclu-leaked-memo-free-speech/
I understand citizens need the right to voice their opinion without fear of government repression; but citizens shouldn't believe they have the right to insult and behave antisocially to other citizens.
Any kind of white supremacist behavior is not something to be treasured as freedom, because that enables their harmful behavior against other citizens.
At the same time, I’m under no obligation as a private citizen to tolerate their odious speech. This even includes in business settings… At an old company I once asked our CEO to take down “sponsored content” from our home feed that was promoted by a group on the SPLC hate group list (for comparison we also regularly took down ISIS material.)
Civil order that it is a crime to breach. So you could get slapped with one on "balance of probabilities" while becoming criminalised for something fairly arbitrary like entering an area or being drunk. I seem to recall somebody was given an ASBO forbidding them from having noisy sex - which they subsequently did and then faced criminal sanction.
Yes we should tolerate the speech of white supremacists and other hateful characters, because the alternative is to see reasonable statements lumped in with them. Where we should draw a clear and sharp line is at violence.
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer." - William Blackstone
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall
I mean have you actually seen the "science" used to claim even the existence of different races? It's all misleading statistics and pseudoscience. You group a bunch of people together based on geographical origin and then observe some differences in the averages between the two groups, ignoring that the differences within each "race" are larger than the differences between "races," and that the lines are being drawn arbitrarily, and that even the measured averages could be different as a result of environment or culture rather than genetics.
There is no way for a Nazi to win that on the facts because the facts are against them. Which is why they have so little actual support. There are probably more trolls pretending to be Nazis than there are actual Nazis.
They're used as the boogeyman specifically because there is such widespread agreement that they're wrong.
If you want to understand the terror of total state censorship practiced "the first time", then look to Lenin specifically and communism more generally.
Alternately, one can argue this climate of fear and systematic repression was present during the French revolution, but not localized to the entire state.
Once you start studying groups by linguistic origin (not "race") things become much clearer since people historically didn't really move around that much, and genetic markers are quite visible (a la 23andMe). I don't think you need to be a Nazi or a troll to be interested in any of this.
1. https://openpsychologyjournal.com/contents/volumes/V3/TOPSYJ...
And it's a completely arbitrary line. If Swedes are on average taller than Austrians, are they different "races" then? It's balderdash. There are genes that affect height and whatever else, but they're widely distributed throughout all "races."
Edit: To your point about group taxonomy, usually precision is only available to a level where genetic markers are present and distinct. This in turn comes from groups not interbreeding. For instance, using 23andMe's taxonomy, Sweden belongs to the "Scandinavian" group and Austria belongs to the "French & German" group:
https://customercare.23andme.com/hc/en-us/articles/212169298...
Edit: Also to assert that, given two random people on opposite ends of the height spectrum, it's much more likely that they are distantly related than closely related (controlling for sex) because (controlling for nutrition) height is a heritable trait.
But we already know that, by and large. It's genetics. And the thing we know about genes is that they align very poorly with "races".
It's like grouping animals by color. Then you discover that brown animals are bigger than red animals, because bears are brown and bears are big whereas cardinals are red and cardinals are small. But sparrows are brown. Using the logic of "race" we put the sparrows in the same category as the brown bears. The black bears go in with the black housecats. The red housecats are with the cardinals.
The fact that you can find statistically significant differences between the color groupings doesn't mean you're not doing something preposterous.
The thing about groupings like this is that they only exist in the statistics.
If you take two populations of otherwise identical people and then isolate them from each other, they'll diverge over time. Maybe the land is different, or the weather, and some genes are better adapted to one place or the other so they become more common there.
That's just averages. Originally 50% of the combined population had trait A. Over time, it becomes the case that 30% of the first population has it and 60% of the second population. You can measure the difference in the average. But the people in the first population who have the trait are the same as the people in the second population who have the trait. It just happens to be the case that that trait is better adapted to the place where the second population lives. If you want to talk about something, talk about people who have the trait or don't, rather than where their ancestors lived.
> When we're talking about IQ, asking "why is does it differ across identifiable groups of people?" seems to be a very controversial question to ask or attempt to answer, often getting you lumped in with the Nazis, which was my original point.
Oh, absolutely. And if that's true, it's true whether you want to hear it or not.
The salient point is that the Nazis are still wrong even if it is. Because it's all still just averages. If there is some gene that makes you smarter and 55% of "white people" have it and 45% of "black people" have it and as a result the averages are different, the conclusion obviously isn't that all white people are smarter than all black people, so Nazis are still wrong.
There is also no concrete proof that that's the case rather than the disparity being a result of nurture rather than nature. It's legitimately hard to separate them out even when it's not as politically charged as this.
You could say that about any grouping of people whatsoever.
> If you want to talk about something, talk about people who have the trait or don't, rather than where their ancestors lived.
But clearly where there ancestors lives is a major factor in identifying the likelihood that a person will have a particular trait. And all of this matters because people have gotten it into their heads that every cultural/ethnic group should be equally represented in every field. When you point out that, for the above reasons, this is just as absurd in executive leadership as it is in basketball, they call you a racist/Nazi.
The same objection is raised when people ask "Why are Ashkenazi Jews disproportionately rich/powerful/successful?" or "Why are African Americans disproportionately not?" and you point to the IQ data. In fact you're a racist for even thinking to study this in more detail. This is why I'll never trust anyone to decide what is and isn't an offensive thing to say.
> The salient point is that the Nazis are still wrong even if it is.
It depends on what you mean "wrong". They're clearly morally wrong for murdering and sterilizing millions of people. They're not however wrong that eugenics programs are just as effective in humans as any other animals. And there's more than one way to do eugenics. Why not, for instance, as a matter of public health, simply incentivize people with desirable traits to produce more offspring?
> It's legitimately hard to separate them out even when it's not as politically charged as this.
I agree. Like most things it seems to be genetic predisposition in combination with environmental factors.
By these logic every form of life it's the same since all evolved from the same unicellular organisms.
And yet my cat doesn't have leaves while my plant I keep in the pot doesn't meow.
What about "ethnic groups"? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmy_peoples
>It's like grouping animals by color. Then you discover that brown animals are bigger than red animals, because bears are brown and bears are big whereas cardinals are red and cardinals are small.
Are the grizzlies the same with pandas?
And there are two trees with different height from the same species. Both make the same kind of fruits.
Valable also for German Shepherd and Golden Retriever.
>If Swedes are on average taller than Austrians, are they different "races" then?
But Swedes can be still considered a different ethnic group than Austrians. Does the exact terminology matters? Various groups of people have both differences and also things in common. So what?
"We are what we pretend to be." --- Kurt Vonnegut
And to the extent that it is true, it implies that we should stop using Nazis as the boogeyman. Because trolls are going to use whatever will get a rise out of people. Best not have it be this that they summon up.
That is true enough for most, but not all.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Gonzalez_(spree_kille...
Daniel clearly could not separate the Freddy mask from fiction and made it a tragic reality.
No one dares to do such studies anymore so we can conclude that the "good" has won.
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7015e2.htm
So it depends what you mean. If you mean there are no studies done with such partitioning aimed towards the benefit of those groups, I call that bunkum.
If you mean studies are not sponsored where the outcome is of no societal value beyond reinforcing or justifying an established hegemony or excusing discrimination, then perhaps... and good.
>no societal value beyond reinforcing or justifying an established hegemony or excusing discrimination Researchers might have hypotheses they want to test, and any hypothesis that's not "good" is not explored. Because 1. real identities and careers are affected 2. collected data isn't good enough for journals
"A lie can travel around the world and back again while the truth is lacing up its boots."
It doesn't matter how solid your facts are if people are listening to vox pops of people who back their own internal beliefs.
> There is no way for a Nazi to win that on the facts because the facts are against them. Which is why they have so little actual support.
They don't need support, they just need an echo chamber to be encouraged. Pop onto stormfront and try convince a handful of posters there and see how far you get.
> There are probably more trolls pretending to be Nazis than there are actual Nazis.
If x% (where x is some suitably small number) of a group are the only ones who truly believe it, and the rest are just trolls, then increasing the population size leads to both more trolls and more Nazis. It also doesn't matter to anyone whether the person spewing vitriol is actually a Nazi or a troll when the abuse is directed at them.
> Pop onto stormfront and try convince a handful of posters there and see how far you get.
I've actually done this - it's far easier than you make it seem. I haven't really started collecting metrics on success, but that's kinda what we're missing - messengers who construct a pyramid of truthy statements and go back up the chain to whoever convinced THEM to a particular viewpoint when they find resistance to change from the opposite side. We're missing tech that incentivizes such behavior.
Of course this requires that everyone has a set for themselves a threshold for when they would change their mind about a topic - which I find is far more prevalent among US conservatives (at least online, as they behave to me), than when you try to establish the same among US liberals. Of course, ignoring the obvious field that doesn't have a threshold by design - supremacist religion.
My working theory is that supremacist religionists who converted out of it simply replaced it with liberal ideas (and were being supremacist about those), while there are both religionists and non-religionists among the conservatives.
IF we fixed THAT problem (with new technology, an early one is https://www.kialo.com/tour, but it's not good enough), we can have what you want.
Right now, we're effectively the same tech level as the 1900s (perhaps in a more dangerous way) w.r.t finding truth or the "right" arguments
People like you need to stop saying things like "I understand citizens need the right to voice their opinion without fear of government repression" because this is exactly the opposite of what you want. You want views that you consider objectionable to be subject to government repression. You don't have to qualify it, just admit it.
The reason people oppose restrictions on freedom of speech are fairly obvious to anyone who has thought about the question for more than 5 minutes. The moment you start deciding which speech is and isn't legal, you have now established a mechanism to censor. Ban 'hate speech', those who define the term now control the boundaries of allowable speech, and you can guarantee bad actors will seek those powers and abuse them.
TL;DR: The government must not censor freedom, and citizens should not support acts of oppressions disguised as civil rights.
I'm sure you heard about the Golden Rule, as long as you follow it you should be allowed to express yourself.
But inciting on harmful behavior against white people is somehow the right thing to do?
I believe all people should be treated against the same set of rules.
There are many in the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Civil_rights_organiza...
I usually never express it but this kind of stuff makes me proud of being an American. We need to double down on CR non-partisanly and non-negotiably.
It's also bad that cops pull people over arbitrarily, but that's not the part in the EFF's bailiwick, and there are other solutions than putting ALPR cameras everywhere.
What are these solutions?
For context, speed cameras have been very effective at reducing traffic deaths in cities- https://patch.com/new-york/new-york-city/camera-zones-curbed...
Also, I think it's a bit of a weird argument to say that ALPR is alright for paying highway/tunnel/bridge tolls but not for speed cameras.
I aspire to not hand them AWS dollars one day, but Aurora has been an amazing product for my business.
(Only EFF is really for this particular issue though)
Fighting against due process: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/see-you-court-aclu-sues...
claiming there's no men: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1196877415810813955
and this: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1199725066302308354
Telling families to discuss pronouns: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1250795126584217602
and this: https://twitter.com/ACLU/status/1453779768063766529
I'm all for defending freedom of expression, religion, speech, etc. But this is weighing into topics that aren't really about freedom and in some cases they're actively fighting against freedom. AKA it's become way more political and one sided.
I think there's an argument to be made for the ACLU becoming increasingly performative, with catchy Twitter slogans edging out the real work, but this isn't it.
People feeling uncomfortable with their bodies and performing mutilation is sad. Some people remove their feet as a kinda fetish. Trans people try to look like something else to make themselves feel normal (evidence is that’s not super effective, but that’s beside the point).
The main issue isn’t that. People can do what they want in my opinion. It’s the compelled speech that the ACLU is promoting. “You have to use someone’s pronouns” is the exact opposite of free speech. It’s about as authoritarian a position as you can take. Imo pronouns are even more insidious because (a) they can change by the day and (b) you rarely use someone’s pronouns with said person, so other people have to “enforce” the proper pronoun use.
No, civil liberties has nothing to do with people using someone’s pronouns. It has to do with the freedom to say what you want to say, not compel others. ACLU is now on the side of compelled speech.
This isn't me policing your speech, by the way, saying that you shouldn't say something isn't the same as saying you shouldn't be able to say something.
Is the ACLU actively trying to force you to use specific pronouns, or is that just something they say because it's good social media optics?
that's probably the least worthy of the ones in the list. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Guy_Macon/Wikipedia_has_C...