> Isn't this because civil rights of one individual are often in conflict with the civil rights of another?

Kind of, yes. I think where things go off the rails is where projection and extrapolation come into play.

Recall: one of the key defining cases of the ACLU was their defense of (actual) neo-nazis marching in Skokie in the 70s.

Contrast this with the ACLU in 2017 arguing that San Francisco should prevent an alt-right protest because of theorized violence (the protest went forward. No violence materialized). Volokh wrote a bit about it here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...

There's a lot of inconsistency in the modern day ACLU. I think they've walked some of it back in the last few years, but from 2016-2020 I think they kind of lost their mind and I saw a lot of strong advocacy for these sort of projected societal norms -- don't let the bad people protest -- rather than the staunch defense of individual rights no matter who the individuals may be.

I want an ACLU that isn't polarized by politics. With a focus on individual rights.