Leftist Criticism of ACLU

This leftist UCLA law student, writing in the New York Times, thinks that the ACLU should move beyond its "bright line" rule that protects free speech for everyone and into a position that protects free speech for the left.

Doesn't it occur to her that the government - from state houses to the White House - is controlled by Republicans and she is essentially advocating giving Republicans the power to define "hate speech."

Because when I look at the political world, the biggest source of hate I see is on the left, including people like her.

And I suspect most other Americans agree, particularly after the last year.

I oppose giving censorship power to Donald Trump for the same reason I oppose giving it to her, which is the same reason I oppose giving that power to any government on Earth.

ACLU losing interest in the free speech part of civil liberties.

Too many people keep criticizing the other parts.

Seems like we need an organization that might protect speech.

These idiots are...well...idiots. It is far more useful to have them self-identify than to hit them over the head with clubs and have them learn not to publicly self-identify and thereby teach the real dangerous psychos to plot their craziness where no one can spot them.

For heaven's sake, the one idiot was venting on Facebook.  Yes, she's a hypocrite, but where is a person supposed to flirt with politically incorrect ideas.  Call her out; call her a hypocrite; argue with her; ventilate her noxious statement with facts.

Ditto the other loon: talk to her; do a background check; monitor her; but to arrest her for an unhinged phone call is not the way to get intelligence on potential threats.

//A board member for the American Civil Liberties Union of Colorado has resigned after urging people to kill supporters of presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Loring Wirbel’s Facebook post was captured by The Daily Caller – a right-leaning online newspaper.

The post states, “The thing is, we have to really reach out to those who might consider voting for Trump and say, ‘This is Goebbels. This is the final solution. If you are voting for him I will have to shoot you before Election Day.’ They’re not going to listen to reason, so when justice is gone, there’s always force…”

“It’s almost like, you will think the way we think, you will do what we want you to do, or we eliminate you?” says Steve House, chair of the Colorado Republican Party.

It’s the second threat against Republicans in Colorado in one week.

Fern Delise, 54, of Fountain was arrested after police say she called Planned Parenthood saying, “It’s tempting to walk into a republican party meeting with my dead husband’s gun and just start shooting people.”//

ACLU - Firmly committed to the protection of speech we like against people we don't like.

Nat Hentoff points out that the ACLU is noticeably absent from the protection of free speech against leftist oppression.

The Radio Television Digital News Association recently presented its new First Amendment Defenders Award to Tim Tai, a student journalist who was hired by ESPN to cover the anti-racism protests at the University of Missouri.

"Tai was confronted by University students, faculty and staff, threatening him with violence if he did not abandon his efforts," the award citation reads. "Instead, he stood his ground and patiently asserted his First Amendment Rights to stand in a public place and report on the events around him."

One would hope that the ACLU of Missouri issued a statement of support for Tim Tai at the time the video of this highly publicized event went viral on the Internet. But the ACLU of Missouri didn't even acknowledge that the incident occurred. Instead, they issued a statement that "the ACLU of Missouri honors the University of Missouri students and faculty who displayed courageous and creative leadership ..."

The next day, when MU's student body vice president suggested on national television that the exercise of First Amendment rights creates a hostile and unsafe learning environment, the ACLU of Missouri remained silent. Two days later, when a Christian street preacher was physically assaulted by anti-racism protesters while speaking inside MU's designated "Free Speech Circle," the ACLU of Missouri remained silent.

The same pattern repeated itself in Connecticut during the same month. When Yale University student protesters interrupted a free speech symposium on campus, and spat on attendees trying to leave the venue, the ACLU of Connecticut remained silent. When Yale instructor Erika Christakis urged tolerance of offensive viewpoints, and was verbally abused and harassed until she resigned her teaching position, the ACLU of Connecticut remained silent.

The National and local ACLU chapters haven't done the student protesters any favors by withholding criticism of their anti-free speech behavior. In the vacuum created by such deafening silence, the rudderless ACLU chapter at Wesleyan University signed on to a list of student demands that included "an anonymous student reporting system for cases of bias, including microaggressions, perpetrated by faculty and staff." The demands supported by the Wesleyan ACLU chapter also called for the "revision of ... professor evaluations to include a section dedicated for reporting ... microaggressions ... perpetrated by instructors."

Substitute the words "un-American activities" for "microaggressions," and you have a demand reminiscent of the anti-communist witch hunts that ravaged American universities during the 1940s and '50s. The ACLU was the leading advocacy organization for academic freedom during the McCarthy era. It shouldn't let its guard down now.

Remember how we were always told by the ACLU that we had to protect the rights of the most despised members of society, e.g., murderers, communists and perverts, in order to protect our own rights?

Hahahahahaha!

If you believed them, you were an idiot.

The enemy remains the same, but the principle change directions.

The nice thing about having a Democrat in the White House is that there is never any bad news...

...and no one gets the vapors when Obama signs bill restricting protests in the presence of Very Important Politicians.

On March 21, 2012, President Obama signed HR 347 into law. According to this article, HR 347 lowers the intent requirement from intentional to wilful and extends the scope of the Secret Service's ability to arrest people who protest against politicians with Secret Service protection:

President Obama signed bill H.R. 347 (also known as the Federal Restricted Buildings and Grounds Improvement Act of 2011) into law on March 9th, amid numerous protests from the Occupy movement, as well as other agencies. HR 347 is a modification from Senate bill S. 1794, which restricted people from entering or blocking public areas that have been closed off by Secret Service while a person under their protection is passing through. The law also included major public events, such as the Inaguration and Presidential campaigns.

The new law, which passed the House with a vote of 399-3, extends the original law by adding more protected areas within Washington D.C, and removing the word “willfully,” from the paragraph stating that protesters can be prosecuted if they enter the area “willfully and knowingly.”

Representative Justin Amash, R-Michigan, explains this change by saying:

“ The bill expands current law to make it a crime to enter or remain in an area where an official is visiting even if the person does not know it’s illegal to be in that area and has no reason to suspect its illegal.”

This is either a bold affront against the First Amendment or a sensible revision of existing law.

Obviously, inasmuch as a Democrat signed it, it's no problem either way. The ACLU - which gets the vapors if a single cross casts a shadow on public property - is taking a laid back attitude to HR 347.

Without getting too much into the weeds, most crimes require the government to prove a certain state of mind. Under the original language of the law, you had to act "willfully and knowingly" when committing the crime. In short, you had to know your conduct was illegal. Under H.R. 347, you will simply need to act "knowingly," which here would mean that you know you're in a restricted area, but not necessarily that you're committing a crime.

Any time the government lowers the intent requirement, it makes it easier for a prosecutor to prove her case, and it gives law enforcement more discretion when enforcing the law. To be sure, this is of concern to the ACLU. We will monitor the implementation of H.R. 347 for any abuse or misuse.

Also, while H.R. 347, on its own, is only of incremental importance, it could be misused as part of a larger move by the Secret Service and others to suppress lawful protest by relegating it to particular locations at a public event. These "free speech zones" are frequently used to target certain viewpoints or to keep protesters away from the cameras. Although H.R. 347 doesn't directly address free speech zones, it is part of the set of laws that make this conduct possible, and should be seen in this context.

Rest assured we'll be keeping an eye on how this law will be interpreted and used by law enforcement — especially in light of the coming elections.

Well, that's mature.

Remember how the Patriot Act was an offense against all that was decent? Now the Secret Service can cordone off any space around the president and its mostly "all good."

It's nice when a Democrat is in office and we don't get hysterical about unconstitutional restrictions on Free Speech.