The ACLU agrees!!

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JDSlack

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Interesting "round-table debate that was held in Miami, Fl on the fourth...

The basis of the debatewas as follows:

"If an invading army were taking over, which five of these 10 freedoms would you keep -- and which would you give up -- if you had to choose: speech, press, assembly, religion, the right to bear arms, the right to legal counsel, the right to jury trial, protection from self incrimination, protection from cruel and unusual punishment and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures?"

I found this response from the ACLU rep:

"Taking this philosophy to its reasonable end, she proposed a strategy that sounded bizarre coming from the local head of the American Civil Liberties Union: just keep the guns, fight off the invaders, and get all the other rights back."


The other particpants took a more spineless approach:

"That idea didn't catch on. Instead, the group decided that the most powerful tools against oppression are speech and the right to assemble. Plus, if unreasonable search and seizure were banned, you could hide your guns."

Is there hope after all?

Full story is found at:

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/local/6237565.htm
 
ACLU gets bad rap

They just sided with gunowners here in Texas on HB501 giving clear guidance that cities couldn't pass laws banning guns that are more restrictive than state laws. They have been true champions of our rights over the years.
I doubt many would bash them if their overall policy I.E. 2nd Amendment interpretation was different.
I feel they truly are about defending the Constitution even when it's unpopular. We really need them more than ever since Herr Ashcroft took power....
 
brookstexas,

1...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...10

:p

Don't know about the Texas case, perhaps a cite would help us?

The organization has assiduously ignored our Second Amendment rights.

They do some good work, but this isn't a buffet. One takes the full platter or one doesn't .
 
The official position of the ACLU is to defend the left and occasionaly the Constitution (mostly the 1st amendment).

However, much like there are pro-gun members of the AMA, there are also pro gun and staunch Libertarians who are members of the ACLU.

A few weeks ago I was talking to a lawyer friend of mine who is one of those staunch LIbertarians. He surprised me by claiming to be a card carrying member of the ACLU. He's also a 2nd Amendment absolutist (believes everything back to the '34 NFA shoudl be scrapped).

His attitude about them is that you have to choose your battles, and the biggest complaints he has with them are that they don't choose enough battles (including the 2nd Amendment), that and they seem to want to outlaw Christianity (even though he's an Athiest, that still bothers him).



Also, he challenged me to site one case where the ACLU has gone to court to fight against gun rights.
 
Nadine Strossen (then the ACLU director) told the 1991 Libertarian convention that the ACLU was going to start fighting for the Second Amendment. It never happened, but at least she was willing to defraud people into becoming ACLU members on the premise... what we need is a Bill of Rights Union that takes cases involving ALL ten amendments.
 
You know, I've often thought... what if all the NRA members were also to join the ACLU? That'd be one way to get that organization on our side overnight! :D
 
You know, I've often thought... what if all the NRA members were also to join the ACLU? That'd be one way to get that organization on our side overnight!
Click to expand...

Somebody has his thinking cap on!
 
Preacherman,
I've had that thought too and then thought that the structure and bylaws of the ACLU were probably designed similarly to the NRA. In other words, it is not a democracy. There are various methods that allow the BOD and the top officers of the NRA enormous power in dealing with rebellions withing the organization. I'd be surprised if the ACLU did not have similar barricades in place.

On the other hand, I've never actually researched the ACLU's organization and bylaws.
 
Appairantly they forgot Tieneman Square. Unarmed Assembly didn't do them much good. The speech part didn't work either.
 
Are we possibly seeing a quiet shift to the right?
Click to expand...

That doesn't make the grade with me. People who tip-toe up and hesitantly, quietly support the Constitution don't get any respect from me.

Speaking strictly as a lifelong atheist: the A.C.L.U.'s anti-Christianity efforts are an affront to the First Amendment.
 
I also seem to remember most of the Libertarian party members I knew back in the mid '80s where very anti gun, and where basically socialist and liberals (most I knew where punkers who realised if we ever got anarchy they would get their butts kicked in the first week so the shifted to Libertarianism, the rest where hippies who wanted legal pot).

Now I'd go as far as to say the Libertarian Party is more pro-gun then the Republicans.

Maybe there's hope for the ACLU.
 
Latest Khornet editorial on this

THE AMERICAN CIVIL-LIBERTIES-WE-LIKE UNION

Why doesn't the ACLU defend Second Amendment rights?

Like many lies, the ACLU contains a grain of truth. It is founded on the proven concept that governments will naturally overstep their bounds unless the citizens are vigilant. So far, so good. But they might take a moment from their courageous struggle against Christmas displays to consider this: what happens when a renegade government tells the ACLU to shut up and get back in line?

Is the ACLU just kidding when they say that government can't be trusted, or do they only mean it can't be trusted on certain issues, at certain times? If the Bush Administration are really the bunch of Brownshirts they say it is, what is the ACLU going to do when they smash the printing presses and take over the courts? When the secret police come to take them away, their lawsuits won't do any good.

Take a minute to visit the ACLU web page. Note the noble slogan beneath the name: "Defending The Bill of Rights". Last time I checked, the Second Amendment was still one of them. But the official ACLU policy is that the Second Amendment describes only a collective right, such as the right to establish a National Guard or a police force. This a most disingenuous position, coming from an organization which takes the rest of the Bill of Rights extremely literally. Since amendments I, IV, IX, and X also use the expression "the people", why doesn't the ACLU contend that free speech applies only to police, government, and the media? Why don't they think Amendment IV protects only National Guard armories from unreasonable search and seizure? Why do they think the Founders meant one thing by "the people" in the Second Amendment, and another thing everywhere else in the Constitution?

Their website declares that the collective right interpretation is settled law. Funny, that’s not what Lawrence Tribe thinks. Widely held to be the most influential living American constitutional scholar, he held in 1999 that the Second Amendment guarantees citizens the right "to possess and use firearms in the defense of themselves and their homes", adding that "the federal government may not disarm individual citizens without some unusually strong justification." And the Supreme Court has never made an up or down ruling on the collective vs. individual right issue. The only settled thing is the minds of the ACLU.

Pressed on this issue, a senior ACLU official finally blurted out that they just don't like guns. Now there's high principle at work. This must mean that the ACLU likes pornography and Nazis, since they have defended both, and hates Christians, since they have brought so many lawsuits against them. Maybe the correct name is the American Civil-Liberties-We-Like Union.

So which is it, ACLU? Is our government really a tyrant-in-waiting, kept in check only by your valiant struggle? If that's the case, then government will sooner or later use force to suppress dissent. If the citizens do not have the means to resist, your ACLU is a joke. If you really don't think that Americans have the right to resist the government all the way to the sticking point, that leaves only one explanation: that you have a political agenda which you are intent on forcing upon us. This would explain your reliance on the courts, thereby sidestepping the will of the people. And it would explain your consistent selection of causes which erode the independent character of the American people. The defense of licentiousness, the deconstruction of marriage, the systematic attacks on the right of private citizens to associate with people of their choice, the removal of all morality from the public sphere: all these have one thing in common. They lessen our ability to make our own choices and stand on our own two feet.

The ACLU is unwilling to trust the people to resist the government, unwilling to trust their voice at the ballot box, unwilling to trust the people, period. They refuse to defend the Second Amendment because the ACLU isn't really about Civil Rights at all. It's about placing a leftist agenda in the driver's seat of America.

Michael R. Bowen M.D.
 
The ACLU has done a lot of great work, especially regarding the limitation of police powers, exercise of free speech, seperation of church and state, and right to privacy - as well as the 'hard cases' concerning the rights of alleged and convicted criminals.

Their stance on the 2nd Amendment is hypocritical and stupid, especially when one remembers that it is my right to bear arms that allows me to keep all the others.

It is also true that the 'soul' of the ACLU is hard-leftist types. (Just as the 'soul' of the NRA is white Christian conservatives). I try not to hold that against them, but their failure to support the most essential of the BoR rankles.
 
The ACLU does not support strict constitutionalism. What they do support is liberal constitutionalism. For instance:

The Bill of Rights are individual and inalienable rights. Except of the second amendment. That is neither individual, nor inalienable (and therefore protected by due process).

You have the right to free practice of religion. You have the right to free speech, especially in academic settings. Unless you are a teacher with strong religious beliefs. Then you have neither of these things. Nor do you have them if you are a judge. Or run a company which earns money from the government. Or run a completely private company which offers services to the public. Or the ACLU doesn't like you.

The ACLU is about promoting their ideal of what America is supposed to look like. In some places they happen to be right, but in others they are way off.
 
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