The poster (Katie Herzog) has a podcast 'Blocked and Reported' which you may find interesting [0]. It's broadly what I would consider in the small-el liberal bent.
I wonder how large the generational divide is there. Are younger lawyers less likely to take cases of clients they deem detestable? The article alludes to some internal rift but the topic may deserve an article all on its own.
> Are younger lawyers less likely to take cases of clients they deem detestable
If only that. The younger lawyers would attack (sometimes physically, like with Molotov cocktails, as in the case of Urooj Rahman and Colinford Mattis) those they find detestable, and anybody in the law profession that dares to provide them with any service. Which once was considered a basic human right, but not anymore - now, if you defend the deplorables, you become unperson yourself.
Take it as presumed that a questioner has a direct link to the side of the state or the opposition, or both, of 1930s Germany, and answer the question rather than dodge it.
It somewhat weakens an absolute assertion "X is not justified" when a response 1) lists numerous current or recent instances in which X is argued as justified by a substantial groiup, and the further response 2) boils down to "now is not one of those times in which X is justified".
A chief weapon of both tyrant and bully is to deny their victims and targets the right to self-defence.
There's a huge difference between "consequence of your speech is that you may be criticized and maybe shown you're wrong" and "consequence of your speech is that you will be fired from your job, physically attacked, denied access to business and services, and people who dare to support you will be attacked in a similar fashion". Pretending to not understand the difference and calling both "consequences" is plain disingenuous - and steps right into what Smirnov's original joke was about. Yes, speech has consequences in both free countries and totalitarian ones. In the former, it's debate, in the latter it's jail and execution. Thankfully, the woke is not yet in the latter position, but they long left the former one and are inch by inch moving to the totalitarian side.
And no, none of the facts I stated were "rebutted". One incorrect comment was made about Rahman and Mattis, clearly quoting old (and also incorrect) press articles, which totally missed the point (I never claimed they work for ACLU), and I was then hilariously called "parroting Taibbi". That's not rebuttal.
> And no, none of the facts I stated were "rebutted". One incorrect comment was made about Rahman and Mattis, clearly quoting old (and also incorrect) press articles, which totally missed the point (I never claimed they work for ACLU), and I was then hilariously called "parroting Taibbi". That's not rebuttal.
A. I made no assertions as to who's statements were correct. Incorrect statements get made on the internet all the time. Incorrectness is clearly not a pre-requisite for making a comment or this discussion would be moot.
B. "That's not a rebuttal". Perhaps. But neither is it firing you from your job, physically attacking you, denying you access to business and services, and attacking those who support you. Your qualifying alecb's response as equivalent as cancellation and making you an "unperson" was clearly over the top.
> Your qualifying alecb's response as equivalent as cancellation
I am sorry, what? I never qualified that response as cancellation, you must be confused here. When I talked about cancel culture, I did not mean any of the discussion here - which is completely ok, and even the comments that I completely disagree with, are part of proper and normal discussion that I have no issue about at all. I will of course argue against ones that are wrong - but that's completely not what I meant by cancel culture, and I never said otherwise.
Lawyers sometimes have a duty of representation—-they can be appointed by a court, for example. People that are strictly unable to set aside their personal feelings in the name of professional responsibility are not fit to be admitted to the bar.
It doesn't seem like there's so much a rift as a complete change in policy.
Per the article, the old policy defending Free Speech was ...
> "we are committed to represent those whose views we regard as repugnant"
Whereas the new policy says...
> "lawyers should balance taking a free speech case representing right-wing groups whose “values are contrary to our values” against the potential such a case might give “offense to marginalized groups.” "
It's actually really sad. They've even explicitly paid for campaign ads for Democratic political candidates...
It's really just the ACLU in name only. They've done what so many organizations have done, and sacrificed their principles to take sides in the GOP vs Dem battle. Shortsighted.
It's evidence of a fundamental misunderstanding of what free speech is and why it's important at the highest levels. Free speech is the right to say things that others find offensive. If being offended is enough of an excuse to silence others, then anyone, at any time, can silence anyone else with impunity. If this power is only given to marginalised groups, then it becomes a matter of who defines marginalisation and who gets to draw the dividing lines in identity politics.
Come on ACLU, is free speech a fundamental right or a contingent power to be granted or revoked?
I happen to favor the old interpretation of free speech, but I think there's a strong argument that the traditional approach of defending all free speech facilitates a system where black people and others have been denied their rights for generations, and that we must act now to ensure their rights - that waiting any more is criminal.
We should absolutely act now to ensure their right, including their free speech rights both now and into the future. I do not see how handing veto power over free speech rights to gatekeepers advances that agenda.
Even if doing so might advance that agenda in the short term, and I don't think that's the case to any great degree, all it takes is a shift in who the gatekeepers are for this to go very wrong.
Just look at how many countries outlaw all kinds of speech on the basis of this or that religious group being offended by it. Who gets to represent marginalised groups and say what they are offended by? How many or what proportion of them need to be offended for it to count? It's a quagmire.
I'm not ignoring the many problems marginalised groups face, I am simply addressing the current topic of conversation, free speech. Furthermore the ACLU isn't ignoring them, they have many excellent programs devoted to those issues.
Talking about X doesn't imply ignoring Y, and I object to the blatantly hostile and manipulative language.
I don't see anything hostile or manipulative, but apologies if it seems that way.
> I'm not ignoring the many problems marginalised groups face, I am simply addressing the current topic of conversation,
That is an example of my point and (in my understanding) the point of the new 'movement' in the ACLU: Free speech is always the topic, and has been for generations, and the other civil rights of marginalized people are never the topic - or not enough to motivate anyone to solve the problems.
A sort of dramatic hypothesis: Free speech affects the people who sit at the table, so that's what they see and what they care about. The marginalized get table scraps.
I actually support the ACLU's 'old' stance on free speech, but that's not the topic of conversation IMHO.
I believe in free speech but only when it suits my political views.
That's not free speech.
And just to counter your actual point, what about a lousiana white person who's family's been living in poverty for 100 years? Do they get free speech? Or not, because they're white?
As soon as you make civil rights selective and for only certain people, it’s a political view. Either it’s civil rights for everyone or you are taking some sort of political stance.
Whether that’s repressing a minority (past) or repressing a majority (current trend), it’s basically treating people unequally and it’s just as bad.
> As soon as you make civil rights selective and for only certain people ...
We agree (without getting into the weeds of the wording). My point is that the civil rights of marginalized people have long been highly 'selective'. The outrage when some rights of the majority are threatened is ironic, or something.
The majority usually doesn't need much help; look around, at successful people in almost every domain: white guys have tons of freedom, voice, opportunity, prosperity, safety, etc. Turn on the news and see who does the talking. I think concern for their rights is often (without talking about you in particular - I don't know you) cover for protecting their political and social power, protecting the established discriminatory system.
Civil rights are there for the vulnerable, who don't have power. 'Democracy must be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on dinner.' People in the majority have rights, absolutely, but that's not a problem and it's a distraction from the serious issues.
Except you are lumping in all white people as powerful. Which I profoundly disagree with as per my point in the first comment, what about someone who's white but has been generationally poor? It is absolutely ridiculous to call these people powerful or free or having a voice even.
There might be racism in society but that doesn't mean you get to lump all white people together as more powerful than all black people. There are plenty of powerful black people, and plenty of zero power white people. What you are doing is basically race based identification and judgement, aka racism.
> There might be racism in society but that doesn't mean you get to lump all white people together as more powerful than all black people. There are plenty of powerful black people, and plenty of zero power white people. What you are doing is basically race based identification and judgement, aka racism.
I agree factually in some respects, but I think that argument is a distraction. Obviously we must generalize somewhat; we can't write out every detail, and no matter what level of detail we include, someone can point out more that we omit. We could list the status of every individual in the country, but then we would be omitting their histories. On the other hand, generalizing about race is something I think we should be very careful about.
So yes, there are disempowered white people. There are disempowered disabled people and short people and immigrants and poor people, etc. There are disempowered rich white male in SV, for various reasons.
But I strongly disagree in this respect: We are talking about power resulting from skin color (what a concept to write - it's just absurd, but it's true!), not from other things. And all white people are much more powerful than black people in that regard. White people can go anywhere, buy anything, get any job, walk down any street, rent an Airbnb, interact safely with police, all simply by power conveyed by their skin color. It even affects where you can go in cyberspace: Look at popular Tik Tok videos; from what I've seen (not a lot, but compilations on YouTube), 98% white, some Asian and Hispanic, I'd guess 0.1% black. Join a gaming forum and make it known that you are black, and see what happens (based on what I understand).
To catalog everyone else who is disempowered is like talking about every other disease at a cancer conference.
I find it very easy to ignore the distinction between defending one's speech, and defending one's freedom-of-speech. ACLU's historical defense of freedom-of-speech is now regarded, very regrettably, as defense of the particular utterances being facilitated under that freedom.
It's not unambiguously true that freedom-of-speech itself is substantially responsible for anyone's loss of other rights. We can't even have a public conversation about this without freedom-of-speech, where all relevant ideas and evidence can be openly evaluated, unless there is essentially no gatekeeper (committee, policy, "filter", etc.) deciding on what is relevant or permissible speech. We will only have biased answers if we bias the discussion.
Further, even mere perception about the bias in the discussion (caused by censorship etc.) causes some people to disengage from the discussion altogether, and facilitates the "silo-ing" of groups of people who have little contact with each other. That is not a recipe for a functioning pluralistic society, and ultimately for peace itself.
The speech utterances are not transgressions of rights; it is the physical actions: assaults, lynchings, unequal imprisonment for identical crimes, etc. So riling up a bunch of people about how "Trump is a Nazi" ought not be a crime, but if someone immediately punched Trump after hearing that speech, then it was that punch that was the crime (violation of right to physical security / life of victim).
I'm assuming that you're not claiming anything like a natural right against exposure to offensive speech ("speech acts").
My point is that when the general gives the order for the war crime and the soldier carries it out, it's the general who is by far the most responsible, even though all they did was speak. The heads of any organization, from a country to a company to a coven - all they do is talk, but they have the most power and are most responsible. The speech is the most significant, powerful part, not the action (with exceptions). For some crimes, no action is necessary beyond speech.
(I assume you know that speech can certainly be criminal or tortious: Fraud, slander, incitement, harassment, conspiracy, accessory, violating official secrecy, etc. But I don't think that's the issue here.)
The exact same restrictions on free speech disproportionately impact black activist groups who might not have the same corporate backing as many right wing think tanks or organisations.
The only thing restrictions on free speech incentivise is conformity to the ruling party's policies and there is an implicit assumption here that the democratic parties values are really the correct ones - which many people of colour will dispute.
The moment the Republicans take over (which they will inevitably considering how few campaign promises Biden has so far delivered), they will turn this on groups like BLM and the Antifa movement in general.
Sure, I agree, but what are you going to do about the civil rights of minorities? The current system isn't working. The problem is that people focus only on free-speech-for-all and ignore the enormous elephant in the room.
Civil rights are not granted from cancelling racists from exposing their hateful views online, it's from taking action against the racist systems and people in power that really impact their rights. This can take the form of both violent and non-violent struggle but the key word is struggle, not just speech or the curtailment of wrong speech.
> the key word is struggle, not just speech or the curtailment of wrong speech
Sure, but speech plays an enormous role, the largest role IMHO.
> taking action against the racist systems and people in power that really impact their rights
What is normalized among the public greatly determines, IMHO, the systems and powerful people. From another perspective: If we just changed the rules and the public didn't change, imagine what would happen. Also, note that people with political causes invest enormous resources in manipulating public opinion.
"If we just changed the rules and the public didn't change, imagine what would happen. Also, note that people with political causes invest enormous resources in manipulating public opinion."
You cannot in fact change the rules if there hasn't been a shift in the public so this seems a rather moot point. I'm not arguing that you shouldn't invest in PR and education on these issues but muzzling the opposition just gives the next rulers in charge an already existing muzzle to use back on yourself.
There is a history of often murderous suppression of "radical" groups in the US and by and far the majority of these were socialists, environmentalists, and marginalised people.
The current fake appeasement to these demographics is just that - a mirage. They're willing to ban Trump from the internet but not raise the minimum wage, abolish the drug war, really come after companies for their industrial scale damaging of ecology or cease trade relations with countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
Excuse me for not taking this current "wokeness" fetishization by fundamentally hierarchical power structures entirely as good faith.
It's also not clear to me at all that "speech plays the largest role". Of course, existing power structures want you to believe that because the thing they fear the most of all is armed and genuinely effective resistance and it also helps perpetuate the illusion of a free and democratic society as if all it took to conquer racism and imperialism was to have a sit down and chat - with the hidden assumption that prior exploited people were just too stupid to consider this before - but MLK and Ghandai would have gone nowhere if there weren't decades of riots and militant struggle preceding them that pushed the US and British governments to enter negotiations with these parties.
> They're willing to ban Trump from the internet but not raise the minimum wage, abolish the drug war, really come after companies for their industrial scale damaging of ecology or cease trade relations with countries like China, Saudi Arabia, and Israel.
I think 'they' is way too broad. Some companies banned Trump from their platforms. Those companies aren't particularly involved with the policies.
> the thing they fear the most of all is armed and genuinely effective resistance
I strongly doubt it. Such things are so rare and unlikely, not only in the U.S. but in democracies in general, that it's not too far off saying 'what they fear most is a giant meteor strike'. Well that would be a big problem, but not what is most feared. There hasn't been one in the U.S. since the Civil War, and that one came top-down, from the power structure.
Obviously, these companies themselves are not involved in the policies themselves but am I supposed to believe that all the major social media platforms independently decided to ban the then president of the United States when he had repeatedly violated their terms of conditions in the past with no response? That stretches credulity.
I also don't know where you're getting this idea that armed conflict between the people and the state is rare in democracies, least of all the US which has had several riots and armed conflict between the state and guerrilla organisations since the civil war, many of which have had a direct effect on legislation and happened decades before the Civil Rights act of 1960.
But it was never free speech that denied them their rights. The entire point of free speech is that it protects the rights of marginalized groups and enables them to advocate for changes in society.
Racists never needed the protections of free speech to argue for denying people their rights because those views already had widespread societal acceptance.
Now that explicit racism is no longer the norm, organisations like the Klan need to rely on free speech protections, but thats only evidence of how unacceptable their beliefs have become.
These earnest arguments that limiting speech will help protect people are terrifying.
It remains the norm in many places IME, including on the Internet and in many private conversations with white people.
Which returns us to the problem: What do we do about the other civil rights of minorities? People keep focusing on free speech for the majority and never address the far more serious problem.
Again, What do we do about the other civil rights of minorities?. Notice how people talk about everything else. Once you notice this pattern, you will see it everywhere and see it going back generations, which is how the racist status quo continues (whether or not that's the intent of the people talking).
This is made worse by the fact that they're partisan political. It would be somewhat better if they refused free speech cases from all extremist groups.
> This is made worse by the fact that they're partisan political.
What if the greatest threat to free speech is a political party? Should the ACLU allow that threat to advance unopposed so that the ACLU can claim to be non-partisan?
Yes, they should. The ACLU exists to defend civil rights regardless of how those rights might be used. They do not (or at least did not previously) exist in order to further a political agenda.
Your freedoms should _never_ be contingent on the expression (or lack thereof) of a particular political ideology.
> he ACLU exists to defend civil rights regardless of how those rights might be used. They do not (or at least did not previously) exist in order to further a political agenda.
The former is inconsistent with the latter. The preservation of any set of civil rights you might conceive of is, absolutely, a “political agenda”.
Yes, perhaps that was worded somewhat poorly. The ACLU certainly does lobby for political change as well! They did not historically, however, take into consideration the degree to which one's political agenda aligned with theirs when deciding whether to render aid in the defense of (legally guaranteed!) civil liberties.
It's also worth noting that the meaning of the word "political" is overloaded here. I did not use it in the same sense that you did - I hope that doesn't escape your notice. (Still though, a potentially ambiguous wording is nonetheless a shortcoming. It's on me to ensure that my communications are as clear as possible.)
> The ACLU exists to defend civil rights regardless of how those rights might be used. They do not (or at least did not previously) exist in order to further a political agenda.
Again, what if a party or politician is a significant threat to civil rights, and necessary to the defense of those rights is the defeat of that party? I think the ACLU would be abandoning its duties if they stood helpless on principle. Probably they should make clear their reasoning.
> Your freedoms should _never_ be contingent on the expression (or lack thereof) of a particular political ideology.
I'm not sure how that is relevant to the question. Also, there are exceptions to everything, including free speech and political ideologies. First, anything can be called a 'political ideology'; those words are not a shield. Second, if your political ideology is to seize power and end civil rights, you don't have unlimited right to promote it (especially if you are a threat to succeed); my tolerance for your rights doesn't extend to you taking away my rights.
No. Such considerations are out of scope when defending against infringement of civil liberties. Limits and exceptions are defined by law; the courts can and do enforce them.
The ACLU did not previously, and should not going forward, make value judgments about a defendant when deciding whether or not to take a case. Such value judgments run directly counter to the notion of equal rights under the law which is what they supposedly stand for. The ACLU should quite literally defend enemies of the state in the event that their civil rights are violated. If they are no longer willing or able to act in such a principled manner then we are in sore need of a replacement.
It is imperative that your legal rights not depend on others agreeing with or liking your views. You don't enjoy freedom of political speech "while saying the right things", you enjoy freedom of political speech "full stop".
(Do note that I have nothing at all against organizations that lobby for political change. The ACLU has historically done that as well! What set them apart was their commitment to defending the civil liberties of anyone and everyone, no matter what.)
> No. Such considerations are out of scope when defending against infringement of civil liberties.
That merely ignores the problem: It's (arguably) necessary for defending civil liberties. The old formulation now fails to defend civil liberties (and arguably always has, for minorities).
When I was in university, there were law students who called for lawyers defending certain people (in this case Jian Ghomeshi) in court to be disbarred.
Wow, considering how that trial ended up, with the women involved lying, colluding together on testimony, interacting with him after events, on and on...
Well, they want punitive action against anyone doing the entirely legal, and correct thing by representing him, so they didn't want him having a fair day in court...
Again, laws don't matter... the truth doesn't matter, have a trial of public option, and even make it hard to have his side heard.
After all, they didn't want him to have a fair defense?
Canadians pay too much attention to US politics. We're not perfect, but for example "defund the police?
Look at a Toronto sized US city police, and social program budget. Now look at Toronto.
Surprise! Toronto's social programs almost rival the police budget. US city? Almost non-existent, and they get military surplus weaponry. No comparison. Not even remotely the same.
Yet Canucks run around, gibbering on about defund the police, when we've effectively always done that!
Perfect? No. But we should focus on our real issues, not transplant US issues here.
So I looked up San Diego, not quite as big, but close in a liberal leaning state. Health and humans services get $2.7b vs $2.2b for public safety on a $7b total budget.
I'm not sure if California does it better. I just know much of the funding comes from the federal/state government. A significant portion of the sheriff budget in my county is local taxes. Local funding is 3% for social services, the other 97% are state/federal taxes.
One of the narratives I've seen in news articles is that a writer will talk about the proportion of general funds to police vs social services. The funding levels could come from city general funds, county, state, or federal agencies. It makes sense to talk about overall funding instead of local funding for things like police and social services. People that are taking that tact are either disingenuous and slanting hard for their political gain, or ignorant of the complexities involved.
As to the hand me downs, $6b worth of equipment has been passed down to police from 1990-2017. That to me doesn't seem to be a significant amount. Averaged over 27 years across 50 states is $4m/year per state. I know it wouldn't distribute evenly, but that isn't a significant amount of value. There would likely be some unique items they couldn't get anywhere else though.
I don't know how large the generational divide is _within_ the ACLU, but I know that there is a generational divide. I'm 57, and a firm believer in free speech, but my younger friends have a different viewpoint.
I don't understand this take. Were Boomers, for example, adamant defenders of free speech (on the whole)? Gen X might be an exception, but it seems to me that all prior generations attempted to squelch speech and other rights more so than Gen Z and Millenials.
The change many people are noting is that opposition to free speech used to be largely confined to the religious right. It's now much more broad.
I think part of it is the rise of online echo chambers. People act like the media they consume, and latter generations grew up with online circle jerks being the norm.
Another factor is the rise of so much bad faith disinformation coupled with the extreme virality of bullshit on social media. It seems like the truth of a story is inversely proportional to its likelihood of being shared on Facebook.
There's been a panic about the explosion of things like Qanon, neo-fascism, and anti-vaccine disinformation. I hear a lot of people questioning whether it's possible to have a liberal open society without... ironically... censorship.
I don't think censorship can be the answer, but I don't know what the answer is. The last few years has left me utterly shocked at the gullibility of human beings. Do people even think at all or are we indeed just mindless "meme machines" whose central nervous systems are vectors for replicating patterns?
I think the answer is to view Free Speech as a positive right. Ie, something the state guarantees you have. As a logical consequence, the state must then also fight those who actively oppose you having the right to speak freely. Or any of your other rights. Those who seek to destroy your positive freedoms should have them taken away. Similarly, not being discriminated based on skin color or sex or gender is also a positive right in my view, so anyone who discriminates based on those categories should similarly be punished, otherwise their intolerance propagates.
Censorship of those who seek to oppress is necessary to require freedom (or to put it another way, the paradox of intolerance is that you must be intolerant of those who are intolerant, to guarantee that maximum tolerance is not only possible but guaranteed over a long time frame).
On the note of meme machines, I always liked to think that Memes ought to be studied in a university course, Memetics could become a serious field of study.
I suppose one could argue that this amounts to a threat of violence, which is a form of limited speech. I am not free to make bodily threats of violence toward other named individuals. Threatening positive rights is threatening force, so it definitely gets at least near to that line.
It doesn't have to be force at the start. If a politician were to run on the platform "no free speech for poor people", obviously they're not applying force or threatening it.
And even when elected, they threaten no force, they simply remove a right from the law.
At no point did they threaten force against poor people, only that their free speech be taken away. They got elected and are doing it non-violently.
Now poor people no longer have free speech.
Hence, either you must treat a threat against free speech as violence unconditionally of it's physical or psychological component (ie if it has a legal component) or you must acknowledge that free speech can be threatened by non-violent oppression.
> Censorship of those who seek to oppress is necessary to require freedom
Besides the obvious, who defines what is oppressive? If we are censoring people then there should be due process at a minimum, so who writes those procedures and laws? How do we ensure they don’t become politicized?
Oppressive is that which seeks removes your positive freedoms. Positive freedoms should be fairly uncontroversial, things like freedom of opinion, freedom to bodily autonomy, freedom to seek work, freedom to basic living conditions etc.
To ensure they don't become politicized, any new positive freedom should require a 2/3rds approval by the government (and for the people in the US that means you need to figure out multi-party or this is gonna suck) and removing a positive freedom would require 3/4th approval by the government.
The procedures and laws should be handled and drafted by a separated government branch, which is dedicated to protecting the freedoms granted by the constitution (as well as protecting the constitution of your country itself). They substitute prosecution in case of violations but do have to go through the same courts as everyone else.
To ensure that this doesn't escalate for person-on-person disputes, generally they should only prosecute those who are threatening to oppress or have oppressed a group of people or a person for being part of a group of people under protection from the constitution (like their sex, gender, economic background or skin color).
And you think this new gov department won’t become politicized? Whatever affiliation you are, imagine the opposite side running these offices. That is very scary.
Then there’s the question about your so-called “nonpositive rights”. What does this include? What does it take to remove these?
Your vision of the future here is terrifying, and I will personally fight against a truth dictator and the removal of rights with every ounce of my being.
Positive and negative freedoms aren't something new and even the US has plenty of examples. They merely stipulate what the state has to do to ensure them. A positive freedom is one where the state has to act to preserve them. A negative freedom is one where the state has to not act to preserve them.
For example, owning property is a negative freedom, because the state must not act against your property to ensure this freedom.
Being free of violence is a positive freedom, as the state will have to act to ensure this freedom (by sending a police officer when you dial 911 for example). In this note, not being a victim of theft would be another positive freedom, as the state will act to prevent it or redress you as a victim.
Negative rights don't have to be removed, as you fear, they're simply rights that the state can passively guarantee without having to interfere. Generally, such negative rights/freedoms don't require protection from the state, (hence they're negative).
On the flipside, the positive rights and freedoms do need to be protected. You have a freedom of speech/opinion, which is positive in that the state should act that you can enjoy them. If it were a negative freedom, then they could be lost at the toss of a hat the next time a truth dictator comes to power, as they aren't required to be protected.
So by the very nature you say you fight the removal of these rights, you're already reinforcing that freedom of speech is a positive right. (I don't even get were truth dictator comes in?)
To point out, there is gov departments in a few countries that already do what I describe or very close to. While generally not perfect, they have been useful in digging out neonazi groups and fighting for your freedoms more than the armies of those countries.
This got real buried. Thanks for the intro to positive and negative rights. My complaint is with removing rights. Rights are not supposed to be removed, you’re born with them. I do not think any entity should be able to remove any right, positive or negative. It’s a dangerous precedent and I reiterate, every ounce of my being.
Again, I don't advocate for removing them, but that in order to protect your positive freedoms, the state will have to violate someone else's freedoms, negative or positive.
At the moment, the US has no protection against a political party removing your freedoms from the constitution. If someone were to attempt it, they would be let off scotts-free, so to speak. There is no punishment for saying "poor people shouldn't have the right to vote or freedom of speech", which some of your politicians are already saying in a roundabout way.
And once you lost them, you won't get them back as easily and that will be more dangerous that violating someone's freedoms to protect everyone elses.
In the Boomer and GenX generations the right wing opposed free speech and the left wing fought for it. In Millennials and GenZ it’s the opposite. If you have a group that’s mixed in age but most made up of left of center people from their respective generations then you are likely to see all the would be censures in the younger half.
I don't know about others but I'm totally the opposite of #1. The more I know about a domain the more I am willing to propose new ways of doing things in that domain. I am conservative about things I don't understand because I don't feel like I know enough to break the rules effectively.
The ACLU has been the premier organization fighting for free speech since its inception. This transformation is like the staff of the Muscular Dystrophy Association deciding it really ought to put its energy into fighting herpes. There’s nothing wrong with fighting herpes, but if staffers did that they’d be stealing the organization.
Well, more like refusing to help certain people suffering from AIDS on the basis that they’re “a net negative” by engaging in behaviors that spread the disease.
This article is not the first time I’ve ever heard of the ACLU. I read dozens of their cases in law school and attended lectures and conferences they’ve organized. I’m well aware of their history.
It’s true that civil liberties means more than just free speech. They’ve also done very important work in defending the rights of the accused, for example.
What they never were, until the organization was stolen, was a generic left of center organization that advocated whatever happened to be popular among that sector of society regardless of whether or not it had anything to do with civil liberties, or indeed were outright opposed.
There’s always been ideologues that thought that anything and everything else should give way before their moral certainty about everything. It just unfortunate that they’ve destroyed an institution that stood up for specific meta-principles.
Theyve said previously that the reason they mostly stay out of the 2nd amendment is that there's already a well funded organization that has made the 2nd their sole focus. The NRA's budget is larger than the ACLUs.. so it makes sense for them to prioritize other constitutional issues.
There have been others. I join in the disappointment at the sad turn the ACLU has taken. But they have been consistent in their opposition to no-fly lists, as an end-run around due process, and have applied the same argument against proposals to create similar no-gun lists.
They are right in both cases.
Then there was this case, which was mainly 1st amendment, but with strong 2nd amendment ingredients:
America is a weird outlier in lifting worship of freedom of speech far far beyond where other rich, free countries do, so that’s not all that surprising.
Increased rights have consequences. Decreased rights have consequences. There are limits on rights everywhere, even the US. I think it's quite rational for people to favour one or another system or limitation.
The first amendment in America protects speech (etc), while freedom of expression in Canada has stricter limits on speech w.r.t. hate speech. I'd argue that Canada's limits are more reasonable. I also accept that rational people could argue the opposite. I trust in the democratic process to deal with these issues.
The limitations on hate speech are something I agree with strongly, and would vote against someone wanting to reduce them. So I guess you'd find my position bizarre.
The issue is who gets to define 'hate' or any other limited category of speech. You might feel that Canada's limits are benevolent, but the existence of such laws codifies the avenue of their corruption. The risk is that such limits grow more and more restrictive until disagreement is unacceptable.
Personally, I'll continue to defend the US model. Speech should have no legal limits, but that doesn't meant it doesn't have civic consequences. Those who disagree are free to do so publicly, repeatedly and loudly.
> I'll continue to defend the US model. Speech should have no legal limits
And honestly this is the weirdest fucking thing: there’s _plenty_ of legal limits to free speech in the US, and yet there’s this loud section of Americans who believe the particular lines drawn in the US were etched in stone or something.
> there’s _plenty_ of legal limits to free speech in the US
Not really? The limits are essentially directly inciting violence, directly threatening, and knowingly aiding someone in the commission of a crime (ie literally coaching someone else on how to break the law). That's not "plenty", that's really the bare minimum (and exactly how it should be, from my perspective at least).
Right, apart from incitement to violence, words liable to cause breach of the peace, threatening speech, obscenity, defamation, invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress, campaign financing, speech by government employees, many forms of national security related speech, and instruction on how to make weapons, what speech is banned?!?
Defamation - A famously high bar in the US. It has to be a knowing and intentional falsehood and have caused measurable harm if I understand correctly. That really seems like the absolute minimum of limitations to me if we're going to have a hope of maintaining a functional democracy. (We've got laws against false advertising as well ...)
Campaign financing - Notorious for enjoying minimal regulation in the US relative to other developed countries. Again I'm not sure how else a functional democracy is supposed to be maintained?
Invasion of privacy - I'm a bit fuzzy on this one. Are you referring to things like HIPAA, or to something else? Bear in mind that such regulations only apply to the professionals who are already authorized to view the data. To me it seems similar to the confidentiality you enjoy when talking to an attorney.
I already noted that I disagree with the existence of obscenity restrictions. The other ones you mention (national security, government employees, emotional distress) are fairly nuanced and quite limited as far as I understand. The vast majority of restrictions seem to boil down to the generic idea of knowingly and intentionally working to break some law that isn't itself related to speech.
I just can't seem to get too worked up over such a practical set of restrictions myself. Does it bother you that you can't legally incite a mob, or intentionally teach an aspiring terrorist to manufacture explosives? Or do you just object to my characterization of that as being a minimal set of restrictions? But if that isn't minimal, then what is?
> Defamation - A famously high bar in the US. It has to be a knowing and intentional falsehood
No, it doesn’t. Even the narrow standard applied when a public figure is the subject (“actual malice”) can be satisfied either by the speaker/publisher knowing the material is false or speaking/publishing it with reckless disregard for whether it is true or false.
I don't think there should be any limitation on the right to freedom-of-speech except that strictly necessary to be compatible with other natural rights, like the right to your life. The classic ban on shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater can be justified entirely on this ground, because that utterance may cause people to be trampled when people panic. It is not clear that libel laws can be defended on similar grounds, or such grounds at the very least would severely limit the reach of libel laws.
> The classic ban on shouting "Fire!" in a crowded movie theater can be justified entirely on this ground
Falsely shouting "Fire!" in a crowded theater is currently allowed per the Supreme Court [0], as of Brandenburg v. Ohio [1], as it is not an incitement to imminent, lawless behavior. The "classic ban", incidentally, was actually a ban on speech opposing the draft during WW1. The "falsely shouting fire in a theater" analogy was created by judges to justify banning anti-draft leaflets.
> except that strictly necessary to be compatible with other natural rights
Sure, and that’s exactly the basis for it in most rich free countries. You’ll find some social and historic wrinkles, but there’s very little you can’t say in Canada that you can say in America.
The Canadians don’t make a whole dog and pony show over MY FREE SPEECH RIGHTS though, which is why Canadian politics is a little less completely beholden to special interests, why hate speech is illegal there, and why you don’t get direct-to-consumer pharma advertising there.
The non-seriousness of Canadians about free speech is part of the reason I was happy to move to America. I used to defend hate speech laws (as in formal public debate), but in hindsight I was naive about putting the power to define hate speech in a political process. Such laws and their brethren in private organizations that nominally exist to promote public discourse, are used to silence opposition and therefore I find them repellent.
There used to be a grudging respect between the ACLU and the Federalist society. They disagreed on a lot, but not everything by a long shot. I saw ACLU officials speak at Federalist Society events and vice versa. RBG was famously friends with Scalia.
But the current mood is absolutely moral certainty and off the charts self righteousness.
The moral certainty is obnoxious to a comedic level, bordering on tropes of self righteous college students in Che Guevara shirts lecturing about their enlightenment after two semesters at uni.
The goal of the Federalist Society is to replace every single member of the Judiciary with hand-picked candidates that strictly agree with a narrowly-defined canon of legal doctrine.
Their members may be less openly confrontational - more genteel - than some ACLU employees.
But if you think they're any less certain of their morality, or any less self-righteous than those ACLU employees, you're not seeing reality clearly.
It seems to me that certain people fixate on free speech because they have the luxury to be able to. It's like once they've progressed past a certain level of Maslow's hierarchy they forget about the previous levels.
No, people fixate on free speech because no other right even makes sense if you don't have free expression. It's the foundation for our democratic society.
Eh, countries like Germany seem to have managed OK with banning nazi symbols - it hasn't proven to be a slippery slope leading to a ban on criticising the government, or anything like that.
> Researching my book, I looked into what actually happened in the Weimar Republic. I found that, contrary to what most people think, Weimar Germany did have hate-speech laws, and they were applied quite frequently. The assertion that Nazi propaganda played a significant role in mobilizing anti-Jewish sentiment is, of course, irrefutable. But to claim that the Holocaust could have been prevented if only anti-Semitic speech and Nazi propaganda had been banned has little basis in reality. Leading Nazis such as Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch, and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for anti-Semitic speech. Streicher served two prison sentences. Rather than deterring the Nazis and countering anti-Semitism, the many court cases served as effective public-relations machinery, affording Streicher the kind of attention he would never have found in a climate of a free and open debate.
and some are saying it's not working now[2]:
> For the Michalskis, all this was evidence that German society never truly reckoned with anti-Semitism after the war. Germany had restored synagogues and built memorials to the victims of the Holocaust, Wenzel said: “So for a lot of mainstream, middle-class people, that means: ‘We’ve done it. We dealt with anti-Semitism.’ But nobody really dealt with it within the families. The big, the hard, the painful questions were never asked.” In Wenzel’s view, the Muslim students who tormented his child were acting in an environment that was already suffused with native anti-Semitism. “A lot of conservative politicians now say, ‘Oh, the Muslims are importing their anti-Semitism to our wonderful, anti-anti-Semitic culture,’ ” he said. “That’s bull. They’re trying to politicize this.”
Germany has strong protections for individual freedoms and privacy in their constitution, precisely to avoid an illiberal government from arising ever again. The Nazi ban is effectively the lone exception to the rule.
This said, European police generally gets away with a degree of prevarication that North Americans would find unconceivable. The US constitution enshrines the rights of individuals over government, in a way that no European country can match (as far as I know).
Stop the straw man please. No one is going around killing citizens. Something like nine unarmed people per year are killed by US police out of 10 million interactions.
That's total deaths caused by police. It would obviously be higher in the US because the criminals are more likely to have and use guns, policemen in the US just can't afford the peaceful approaches most policemen in Europe can. That doesn't mean they get away with more.
No, those life essentials are not required _before_ getting the right to freedom-of-speech. Indeed, freedom of speech may be essential to discussing how to arrange a society to enable the procurement of those things. Holding off freedom of speech until "basic needs" are met is, to me, a way to guarantee that a tyrant in a poor country stays in power.
Ultimately, those life necessities must be provided by oneself or by someone else, or some combination. Freedom of speech can allow for the best ways of providing these things to be selected. The alternative is that only the prevailing view is considered or approved, often leading to much worse provision of these necessities, including starvation (feudal systems, communism, warlords, etc.).
Or perhaps they come from a place where speech can get you jailed, and unlike you know what it is like to have no constitutional right to free speech? Perhaps they know the value of what you seem so eager to give up, because unlike you they've lived without it?
There are literally places in the world right now where wearing the wrong t-shirt color outside (Thailand, Belarus) Can get you jailed, tortured, or possibly killed.
All the people that come from a place where speech can get you jailed, can only come because they are alive. There's a certain element of survivorship bias there.
The ACLU still has free speech lawyers, and I supported the ACLU to the tune of 1k last year. But logically it follows that supporting the right of African Americans to survive encounters with police, or for Transgender people to have healthcare, increases the amount of free speech in the world by ensuring their voices can speak in it. A decrease in the survival of people is necessarily a decrease in free speech.
The right of people not engaged in violence to survive police encounters is a natural/inalienable right and a right to healthcare are not similar classes of rights. The former is a "negative right", or liberty, from harm by others (the police), whereas the latter is a "positive right", or entitlement/privilege, to goods & services provided by others.
The Bill of Rights was primarily all about liberties / negative rights, whereas since the 20th century people have started talking about entitlements as rights, when they're not, because that entitlements ultimately must be provided by others (primarily through taxes, but also in constraints/mandates on the behavior of others, e.g., limitations on striking by police or other services, the requirement to register in the draft / Selective Service for men, & eminent domain). Government entitlements typically involve the involuntary actions and compelled behavior of people.
Ok, I'll play your game. Political enemies (in China, the USSR, other historic Eastern European states, Turkey.. maybe you'd prefer MLK as an example) are denied the right to life on the basis of their speech.
So if they fight for the right to not be sent to gulags (from which many did not return) on the basis of speech, you consider this an expression of "luxury"?
And do you think free speech might help fighting for their right to life? For example would BLM find fighting to end police killings of Black people easier, or harder, if they could be jailed for their advocacy?
Are you playing my "game"? My question is pretty simple: what's a more fundamental right, life, or speech? Which one would you select if you could only select one? Which one is it possible to have without the other?
You simply cannot exercise free speech without life, you cannot fight for free speech if you are not alive. Free speech is totally dependent on existence.
Both are inalienable and therefore not granted to me by anyone. I have them by default. However, I would easily choose to risk my life to defend my right to speak.
Ok, but your existence precedes both your ability to speak and your ability to fight for your right to speak. Inalienable or no, both rights can be taken from you, but only one is a requirement for you to have the other. Existence is therefore a fundamental requirement for freedom of speech to exist. People who don't exist can neither speak nor fight for the right to speak.
You asked which would one select. I choose the right to exist with my rights intact. Personally, I feel that the alternative isn't life or an existence worth living.
By choosing to "exist with your rights intact" you're choosing both, so you haven't answered the question. Which would you prefer if you could only have one: Life, or Freedom of Speech?
Could you explain to me how you'd exercise freedom of speech, while dead?
Are you being pedantic to win an internet debate or really trying to understand other perspectives?
Edit: The thing you keep missing though is that one cannot choose. I have the right by default. I can choose not to exercise my rights, but by living I have the right to speech.
> If by living, you have the right, then you don't need to fight for it. You already have it.
Exactly. I would not fight _for_ my right, but to protect the rights I already have. In the US, thats why articles in the bill of rights are phrased as they are. The first amendment doesn't say, "congress grants the right speak freely." Instead it is -- congress shall make no law [...] abridging the freedom of speech. This is because I have the right already and the amendment is there to protect it.
This is an intentionally antagonistic line of questioning. The answer has been given clearly. Freedom of speech is equally important as freedom of life. To put it bluntly, you'll have to kill me to silence me.
I'm exercising my ability to speak freely, and it would be impossible for me to be here, speaking, if I was dead. However, it would be possible for me to live without freedom of speech. To put it bluntly, without life, my freedom of speech is useless. Being alive gives me the ability to exercise my right to live, and my right to speak freely. Its two rights for the price of one! Clearly a better deal!
The question is simple but inane, and implies losing the right to speech cannot be life-threatening. Then once conditions progress and the right to life is directly under attack, there is "no one allowed to speak for you".
Sure. Nobody dared speak up against the Holocaust. (Those that did were sent to a labor camp or had their heads sliced off.) Lack of free speech meant the Nazis could (and did) kill anyone for any reason with complete impunity. There was no right to life under Hitler.
The first thing dictators do is remove free speech. This is what enables removing all the other rights at the dictator's whim, because then nobody can speak out against it. Nobody can even inform others about it. This is why totalitarian regimes so aggressively suppress free speech.
The Soviet Union collapsed soon after Gorbachev stopped repressing free speech (glasnost and peristroika). This is not a coincidence.
Yeah, this honestly seems like a nothingburger to me. They have institutional priorities right now for other civil liberties, and once they feel satisfied with progress there they'll probably re-invest resourced into their free speech cases to avoid churn or even grow that area.
It's short term vs long term thinking and clearly they know way more about the Constitution and law than I do to identify major threats to liberty. It's pretty normal for both lay people and professionals to disagree with that strategy, as there are often disagreements in the law. And while I think having this discussion is important, framing it as an existential crisis for the organization is a bit fatalistic.
It's my opinion, and people are welcome to disagree (that's OK), that much of the angst directed towards the ACLU in this thread is more appropriate and effective if directed at the government bodies suppressing free speech, instead.
The head of the ACLU from the 1970s to 2001 says he doesn't think the ACLU of today would have taken the cases that made them famous. (See "Mighty Ira" a documentary on him.)
The ACLU caving to political donors under new executive directors in the Obama years isn't a nothingburger to lawyers like me who looked up to them.
There are many ways this can occur. Think of intimidating, racist language being used to discourage minorities from voting, for example. Or a public official whose expression of obnoxious views about women prevents female employees from feeling secure in the workplace.
The overall tone of the comments here seems to regard speech as an obvious, unadulterated good. I think the reality is actually much more complex.
The point many people here have is that if you only defend non-offensive speech, you’re not for freedom of speech at all. Nowhere on earth bans what they consider non-controversial, inoffensive speech.
All of this was well understood in, say, 1975. The tension you're describing is why the ACLU's hardline stance on speech and the rights of the accused has always been controversial and deeply unpopular in some circles. Without putting too fine a point on it: that's literally what made them the ACLU.
The article uses charlottesville as an example where their actions to guarantee free speech ended up inciting violence and got someone killed. But that's always been the line right and hindsight is 20/20
I’m not familiar with the incident (save it, don’t care), but I can promise you that no honest coroner has ever given “free speech” as a cause of death.
charlottesville was a pretty consequential event politically, which also result in a death.
this is not the first dismissive comment I've had on HN of people showing a disregard for knowledge & literally not caring to know the issue they comment on. both instances i've participated in involved race which is telling to me imho. Seems to go against the ideals of this forum.
I'm no trying to argue either way just point out the example in the article. Personally I lean more towards free speech at all costs.
The problem is this sort of logic can be applied to any position. You can always cherry-pick an example of someone with views that you don't like engaging in violence, and then use that to justify silencing anyone else that holds similar views on the grounds that it "may lead to violence".
Of course, the people who make these types of arguments never apply them consistently. I find it incredibly difficult to believe that someone still talking about a car accident in Charlottesville four years ago, while not mentioning the numerous murders, assaults, arsons, and other crimes committed by BLM activists, is someone that is genuinely concerned about "inciting violence".
The low hanging fruit answer: taking up the defense of the KKK could free up resources for the organization to actively infringe on the rights of others, either through direct violence and intimidation, spread of hate speech materials, or allowing political spending on issues with further its white supremacist agenda.
The article seems to be mostly grasping at straws and doesn't support the notion that the ACLU is against free speech. Articles that primarily reference tweets shouldn't be taken seriously. It's not like the ACLU has never experienced such internal debates over the proper course of action. If the ACLU stops defending the 1st amendment I would consider that a major loss, but that doesn't seem to be the case at all, opinions of individual members in a few scattered instances notwithstanding.
https://twitter.com/kittypurrzog/status/1401610476237197312
The ACLU should split into two groups: ACLU Sr, which fights for free speech rights, and ACLU Jr, which fights against them
(Yes, I saw this when PG retweeted it.)