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Pulpsmack -> RE: Lautenberg's S.1237 - gun owners should read (7/25/2007 12:30:16 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Owner59
The ACLU is neutral.They helped Ollie North,the NRA,etc.Their agenda is the constitution,period,.Left ,middle or right.
What did they help Ollie North and/or the NRA with? Did they help them with respect to the Second Amendment/another issue running contrary to their typical agenda, or did they happen to sleep with these "strange bedfellows" in order to pursue/promote a sanctioned pet-issue of theirs (i.e. the First or Fifth Amendment)? Since you mentioned it I would appreciate it if you would actually cite these incidents so that 1. your assertion can be corroborated, and 2. that your assertion can be corroborated within the context of the point that you argue (not that it underscores my point that they will work with anybody on their issues, but will not work with issues they don't see fit to defend).
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You only think they`re to the left,b/c of your bias.What you call their pet projects,are not your pet projects.They`re just following the constitution,and that makes them seem liberal to you.It`s a perception thing.
No, I think they are to the left because of THEIR bias. I do have MY pet projects, some of which are not THEIR pet projects, and some of which are.
Let's take a look at the website shall we?
Issues of the ACLU: Criminal Justice, Death Penalty, Disability Rights, Drug Policy, Free Speech, HIV/AIDS, Immigrant's Rights, Human Rights, Lesbian & Gay Rights, National Security, Police Practices, Prisoner's Rights, Privacy & Technology, Racial Justice, Religion and Belief, Reproductive Freedom, Rights of the Poor, Safe and Free, StandUp/Youth, Voting Rights, Women's Rights
First of all, look at the way it is (dis)organized. When you click on an issue a group of sub-issues appears. Why then is there "Immigrant, Lesbian & Gay, Racial Justice, Poor, and Women's rights" topics listed as separate issues? Aren't all of these subtopics of "Human rights"? Isn't the Death Penalty a sub issue of Criminal Justice? Isn't Safe and Free some buzz issue fabricated from sub topics of "national security" and "Human Rights"?
Second, they seem to be missing quite a few issues up there. I didn't see "Heterosexual Rights, Men's Rights, (a sorely needed) Rights of the Middle Class, Rights of the Wealthy. Why is that? Some of my topics may not be as actively litigated because they do not produce many cases or controversies (yet) but others certainly have. Yet there is no mention of them. Perhaps they are swept under the rug in a more general topic (like Human rights). Well, why aren’t their counterparts put in the same broader issue. Being kind, it is clear that is suspicious handling of one issue over the next.
You know what else I didn't see? I didn't see anything about taxation (or its unconstitutional abuse thereof). Why? I didn't see anything (heading, subheading, or otherwise) about the right to bear arms. Now, you can make a 5th amendment case over a seizure of firearms (property) without due process (which I will bet dollars to donuts is the ONLY possible way your "they worked with the NRA so they are neutral" BS could fly). So, maybe they didn't think the right to bear arms should have its own issue because THAT could fall under the sub issue of property under the big issue of Police Practices, despite the fact that is only one prong of the Second Amendment controversy.
But giving them that credit... Why do gays, racial minorities, women, and immigrants all have a separate FULL issue when those are tiny fragments of the 14th, Why are there at least 2 separate FULL issues for the First Amendment (religion, free speech)? Why are there these things all getting their own FULL issues, and there is NO representation of the Second Amendment Whatsoever...even in a sub topic? Answer: they don't believe in it and they don't believe in the Constitution in its entirety, and they do not expend any resources championing those causes.
That's all that needs to be said. Pushing the issue merely opens the can of worms with respect to self defense, and 15 other issues I haven't raised or had time to think of, much less scrutinize their position on certain issues (like racial quotas, hate crimes, etc). Celebrate their deeds and advancements all you wish. But elevating them on your shoulders as the "politically neutral champion of the Constitution" is utter bullshit, and that is painfully obvious to anyone who refuses to squint their eyes over the subject.
You can say that (the fictitious) Reverend Green is "a good man" because he set up a soup kitchen in Harlem, raised thousands for the UNCF, and had a gratis literacy program for adults in this neighborhood, with a after-school athletic program for youths there. No matter what Rev Green believed, he was a part of the solution, not the problem, and his deeds deserve respect for helping the area, state, nation with some social problems. But suppose the Rev Green was outed for making hateful remarks about the Hispanics, whom he believed "ruined the Harlem neighborhoods", and whites, who "destroyed and continue to destroy his people", and "if his services were promoting their welfare as much/more as "his people" he would pull up stakes and move on somewhere else". That doesn't undo his deeds, but it does undo his character in terms as what he really is. He is still a great man for the group he wanted to promote, and his work still remains a benefit to society at large, but he is no longer "the champion of the people" that everybody falsely advertised him as. The same goes for the ACLU.
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I notice that all the rants against the ACLU, SPLC ,etc don`t have examples of their mis-deeds or biased behaviors.Just a bunch of sore losers cry-babies, licking old scabs they got scrapping with the ACLU.
I believe my reference should suffice at least as far as substantiating my allegations that they do not represent the issues fairly (or some at all). I also tried to call the ACLU to get a comment, but I got the office shuffle/voicemail runaround. In the mean time, you can feel free and substantiate your "ACLU is really neutral" assertions by referencing where they picked up the banner with respect to the Second Amendment (the actual relevant topic of this thread, God forbid we remain on topic), self-defense, rights of men, rights of heterosexuals, rights of the middle class, rights of the wealthy, rights of ALL citizens with respect to taxation, etc. Something tells me we won't see this surface.
Meanhwhile, I will begin hosing the bullshit out of this thread with respect to the ACLU:
http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14523res20020304.html
"We believe that the constitutional right to bear arms is primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias."
From there they continue to justify there is in effect NO individual right to bear arms and that it (in their view) could be subject to such regulation. Ignoring the black letter, "The right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed" they chose to focus on a collective state's rights side of the equation willfully misconstrued by them in the heading of the Second Amendment "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State". This coming from an organization who has been able to read anything into the constitution to further the aims of the individual, the ACLU suddenly runs out of gas on the issue despite the clear wording of the text that vests this freedom as a "right of the people". There you have it.
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