The only direct complaints have been:

1. Scott Miller: “The ACLU dedicated to protecting the Constitution?! What a crock! The ACLU is a terrorist organization dedicated to destroying, not protecting, the Constitutuion along with the moral and religious values this country was founded upon.”

2. Jim Bjaloncik: “WHAT?!?!? I can’t believe I’m reading this garbage at this site! The Aging Communist Leftovers Union is the greatest threat to our liberties that exists, supporting every crackpot Leftwing agenda out there.”

3. Antone Lamerato: “You guys are totally right. The ACLU really is fighting the good fight, especially when their goal is 100% legalization for minors to have abortions without notifying their guardians. Simply brilliant, it’s good to know that they are really helping people take responsibility for their own actions. What a god damn joke. They regularly partner themselves with radicals such as MoveOn.org, a website that has repeatedly called for the impeachment of President Bush, and not only defend, but ally themselves with the likes of Cindy Sheehan and Michael Moore.

When looking at an organization with the ACLU’s track record it is very difficult to fathom how any thinking person can admire them. It is a case of a noble cause gone terribly, terribly wrong.”

4. Stuart Sanders: “The ACLU does a lot of protection of SOME rights protected by the Bill of Rights, but ignores or actively downplays others. As it is, they should really call themselves more ‘The First Amendment’ Union, as that’s the one they almost exclusively support.

They seem to actively hate the Second Amendment, and I’ve never seen them go to court to uphold the 9th or 10th Amendments, either.”

5. kenny: “aclwhooy! a group of selfrighteous lawyers ripping apart the moral fiber of the United States of America under the gist of defending the constitutonal rights of its citizens, and how much money did they make defending our rights this year, oh, thats right, its all about defending the constitution! ”

So that’s primarily a couple of blanket statements that the ACLU is out to destroy the moral fiber of America, and promote a liberal, Communist agenda. The common thread seems to be the feeling that the ACLU is against religion and the religious. This is a common misconception about the ACLU. The ACLU defends individual religious freedom, but it actively opposes actions of the government to impose religion on people. The conflict is in interpretation over “actions of the government” and “impose religion”.

The other major (unspecified) complaint is that the ACLU is extremist left-wing (liberal). Protecting minority interests from the majority seems an inherently liberal cause. Unfair practices that have been established through tradition without considering the conflict to the principle of Freedom of Conscience are still unfair, and changing them is a liberal (change) act, not a conservative (keep the same) one. The abolition of slavery was a liberal act, too.

I’ve already addressed 4. Their position on the Second Amendment is based upon the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the meaning of the Amendment as protecting the States’ rights to a militia, not individual’s rights to own bazookas, tanks, and nuclear missiles. IX and X don’t have specific claims to be defended.

Moore’s methods are distasteful, but his message isn’t necessarily wrong. MoveOn.org calling for the President’s impeachment is hardly radical, given the pile up of accusations against this President for abuse of power, cronyism, misleading the American public, etc. Much more sensible to call for this President’s impeachment than the last one for zippergate.

I don’t know enough about the abortion consent topic to speak fairly right now.

Nothing has been said here to really justify claims that the ACLU are terrorists or evil or out to destroy the moral fiber or any of the other extreme claims. They’re still “falsely defamed”.

>I would have thought the Bowie knife was more the product of
intelligent design.

Funny. But the word Evolution is being used in this case in the non-technical sense of “developmental change over time”, or the original meaning of the word prior to it being coopted by biology.

Once again, senseless, inflamatory rhetoric with absolutely no support whatsoever. How, exactly, could defending freedom of speech, freedom of press, freedom of religion, freedom of due process, things that have been the basis of our society for the last 220 years or so, all of the sudden become bad things that will destroy our culture if allowed to continue? I fail to see how that works. Now it may destroy some groups attempts to force their concept of morality on others who disagree with them, but that is the whole point. But that is not destroying “moral fiber” of our country, that is protecting us all from one group from forcing their specific concept of morality on us.

I’ll tell you what. If you don’t LIKE the freedoms the US consitution gives us, if you think that these rights are “ripping apart the moral fiber of the United States of America”, there is a very simple solution: get rid of them. Amend the constitution so that we no longer have those rights. The US Constitution has a very specific mechanism to modify parts that are no longer useful to the country, or to add parts that become necessary. If you think the bill of rights is a bad thing, then carry out your civic duty and try to have it abolished. We’ll see how far you get on that. When that doesn’t work, you can always go to a totolitarian country where the country’s moral fiber will be protected (at least the morals the ruling part accepts) and you won’t have to deal with pesky things like freedom. There are a number of options if you prefer your concept of morality over freedom. Otherwise stop complaining about all the freedom you have.

kenny says:
“and how much money did they make defending our rights this year,”

Probably no more than the lawyers defending the other side. It is also not actually the ACLU that makes the money on the court cases, it is the lawyers the ACLU hires to defend people whose civil rights are being violated.

So then all you get from ACLU opponents are throwaway assertions on its communist origins

Anyone who claims that the ACLU is a communist organization is either ignorant, delusional, or at best misinformed.

The ACLU does not espouse the teachings of Karl Marx. (By itself this is enough to make it, by definition, not communist.)
The ACLU does not plan, or want to, take over our country, or (especially) any other.
The ACLU does not have an economic agenda.
The ACLU promotes the free speech rights of everyone–just the opposite of communist regimes.

Not here it isn’t. Sure there are brief and too-the-point comments, but there are also multi-page comments, there may even comments that are longer than the blog article being commented on. Evidence is expected, if you do not post something to back up your claims they hold not value here.

ratbags says:
“So then all you get from ACLU opponents are throwaway assertions on its communist origins, Skokie, and appalling NAMBLA defense.”

If they have something of value to add to the discussion, no one will fault them for saying it. Pointless, baseless, inflammatory comments add nothing. If that is all they are willing to do they are better off not posting, it only makes their side of the debate look bad and gives ammunition to the other side.

ratbags says:
“Second, could they believe that direct discourse with Philip Plait with his life views and outside his expertise would be as talking to Christine Maggiore, the AIDS denier, a foolishness?”

If that is their feeling, why post at all? Posting a one or two-sentence, borderline trolling post with no substance or information whatsoever seems a lot more foolish to me than posting something that BA disagrees with but actually has something, anything, to support it. At least then they would be saying something, as opposed to just blowing out hot air. Besides, there are a lot more people here than just BA.

In fact I was watching “the big Lebowski” with friends. Hence the drinks…

That’s true, you didn’t use the word conservative. But conservative and right are +/- synonymous (I know they’re not exactly the same thing, but for general discussion it works), so I made that leap.

“Resorting to force and government control is a conservative method.”

No. It’s a totalitarian method.

Actually, I’d say more authoritarian, since it’s a favorite tool of dictatorships of all stripes.

What happened in the USSR and the other communist countries was definitely a perversion of Marx’s theories. No question there.

I probably shouldn’t have taken us down this tangent. I just saw too many political terms being misused I succumbed to the temptation to say something.

Still, I stand by my assertion that a totalitarian regime is not necessarily rightwing.

I think we can all agree that communism is a leftwing ideology. What happened in Russia was a pervertion of this ideology, and indeed, I would not call that communism anymore. However, just because it’s no longer communist in the ideological sense does not mean they are also no longer left-wing.

“Resorting to force and government control is a conservative method.”

No. It’s a totalitarian method.

Why are you so hell-bent on calling the old soviets a rightwing regime? Their rule had definite leftwing traits, such as the fact that there was no unemployment, and that everything was state-owned.

“I wasn’t aware that being called conservative was derogatory.”

I never used the word conservative until you brought it up. I did not for a moment suggest that being called conservative is derogatory. I don’t know where you got that.

Note that it says nothing about the inherent good or bad in people. That’s just your valuation of it.

Really? Not even Liberalism c., “a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race”?

It’s not my valuation. It’s the definition used in professional/academic political science.

Conservatism:
2 a : disposition in politics to preserve what is established b : a political philosophy based on tradition and social stability, stressing established institutions, and preferring gradual development to abrupt change
3 : the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change

Liberalism:
b : a theory in economics emphasizing individual freedom from restraint and usually based on free competition, the self-regulating market, and the gold standard c : a political philosophy based on belief in progress, the essential goodness of the human race, and the autonomy of the individual and standing for the protection of political and civil liberties

(I omitted the irrelevant meanings to this discussion.)

Note that it says nothing about the inherent good or bad in people. That’s just your valuation of it.

On left- or rightwing totalitarianism: neither side has the monopoly on liberalism. In fact, libertarians are naturally on the right of the spectrum. And socialists are notoriously intolerant of other people’s views.

When in power, the exteme left does not just turn right, they get corrupted just like normal human beings.

So far, so good. Not making a value judgement, identifying by behavior.

>Liberalism is rooted in the idea that people are generally good and can be trusted to do the right thing; conservatism is based on the idea that people are generally bad and need to be restrained.

This is the first time I’ve seen that definition for the distinction between liberalism and conservatism. Typical definitions I’ve seen are that conservatives was less government (i.e. they’re conservative about how much government control there is) and liberals want more government (i.e. they use a liberal amount of government).

Applied to social programs, for instance, conservatives want social programs to be run by charities working on donations, where liberals want social programs run by the government supported by taxes. On economic systems, conservatives want open markets and less regulation, liberals want more regulations and controlled markets.

This doesn’t explain the distinction on social issues, where conservatives seem to want less individual freedom (make laws against unseemly behavior like homosexuality, promiscuity, etc) and it is the liberals who seem to want less government intrusion. Your definition explains that part of the equation better.

But if I apply your description to business issues, it breaks down. Conservatives trust businesses and rich people, and want less regulation on them. It is the liberals who want more controls on businesses and corporate owners.

I’m sorry, but you’re wrong:

NOT. Paul addressed that pretty well.

Calling a leftwing ideology rightwing because it turns rancid is a very bad habit. First of all, people on the right get pissed off when we dump our “Left-gone-rotten” into the back of their garden (and rightly so). Secondly, it makes people on the left forget that they too can go too far. And finally, it is newspeak: calling peace war and war peace, and left right. Remember Orwell!

I wasn’t aware that being called conservative was derogatory. Saying that the communist states were/are far-right isn’t dumping them in anyone’s garden; it’s identifying their ideology. Liberalism is rooted in the idea that people are generally good and can be trusted to do the right thing; conservatism is based on the idea that people are generally bad and need to be restrained.

I’m not saying one is right and the other’s wrong; there’s as much evidence for one as for the other. That’s just the way the political spectrum is defined. What we identify as liberal and conservative varies a little at any given time, and both “liberals” and “conservatives” in our country have a mix of both in their approach to specific policies. (I’m doing my best to summarize what would be a difficult poly sci lecture into a couple paragraphs…)

What happens when far-left extremists get in a position of power is that they find their ideals don’t work on their own the way they’re supposed to, so they typically resort to force (eg, Pol Pot). Resorting to force and government control is a conservative method.

(I hope the hyperlink works right.)

I think a quote from Benjamin Franklin best sums it up:

“A democracy is two wolves and a small lamb voting on what to have for dinner. Freedom under a constitutional republic is a well armed lamb contesting the vote.”

I’ll leave you with the words of Pastor Martin Neimoller.

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Social Democrats,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Social Democrat.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew,
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

Pastor Niemoller spent from 1937 – 1945 in German concentration camps for these views. They echo Voltiares “I do not agree with a word you say but i will defend to the death your right to say it.”

Something that the ACLU has done extensive work in defending. They have consistantly defended the individual who is expressing their religion and opposed government institution led expressions of religion.

Let’s not forget the warrantless wiretapping scandal. The ACLU just filed a big lawsuit in regards to this with several others signing on—including writer Christopher Hitchens.