Monthly Archives: August 2010

A Critique of the ACLU

General

It takes considerable skill to be able to write from both ends of a political issue, and I’m happy to say that that is the task I am going about with the ACLU. For my defense of the ACLU, click here.

The ACLU frequently backs itself up as being in favor of the Constitution. If one frequents an urban center, fundraisers for the ACLU can be located with pins that say “I’m A Constitution Voter.”

Despite their fervent claimed support for the Constitution, however, the ACLU stands in direct support against the Second Amendment:

“The ACLU agrees with the Supreme Court’s long-standing interpretation of the Second Amendment [as set forth in the 1939 case, U.S. v. Miller] that the individual’s right to bear arms applies only to the preservation or efficiency of a well-regulated militia. Except for lawful police and military purposes, the possession of weapons by individuals is not constitutionally protected. Therefore, there is no constitutional impediment to the regulation of firearms.”

There is a paradox deep in the constitutional anti-gun position. A people’s militia, of the Switzerland variety, is not one in which large stocks of munitions are held in government custody to be used by hired contractors. This is quite obviously not the intention of the writers of the constitution. There is a layer of intellectual dishonesty to shield yourself with the constitution while advocating an argument that runs counter to it.

A more troubling case comes with the case of New York v. Ferber. In this case, the ACLU defended Paul Ferber, who was arrested after he was found to be selling footage of boys masturbating at his adult bookstore. His bookstore was located in Manhattan, and therefore subject to New York State laws governing the sale of pornography, which banned any pornography with anyone below 16 years old, this is younger than the age restrictions placed on pornography websites like videos hd xxx where the visitor must be a minimum of 18 years of age to gain access to the website.

As a progressive organization, the ACLU was started by socialists reacting not only in outrage to the policies of intervention in Europe but also to anti-communist sentiment in the United States following the Russian Revolution. For an organization slated towards artificial economic reorganization to utilize selective defense of businessmen is one disappointing, but to use that selective defense to defend the indefensible is beyond the pale. Sexual abuse of minors in any form is an inexcusable crime.

TomStrong

Point: The ACLU Is A Friend of Liberty

Free Speech, Freedom of Association, Freedom of the press, Individual Rights, Intellectual Property Rights, Libertarians, Liberty, torture, War on Terror

It takes considerable skill to be able to write from both ends of a political issue, and I’m happy to say that that is the task I am going about with the ACLU. For my critique of the ACLU, click here.

The Left and Right political labels are pretty useless at a certain point, but for the sake of convenience, I’ll use the Left wing label in order to defend the ACLU.

The political Left has at its core both a democratic and an authoritarian side. George Orwell, Lionel Trilling and Christopher Hitchens are among some of the most prominent intellectuals to have split with the Left on occasion in order to speak out against tyranny. This dichotomy is one I like to call the “Napoleon-Snowball dichotomy,” after the characters from Orwell’s Animal Farm.

Napoleons don’t simply show up in third world countries like North Korea or Venezuela – they also have their place in the United States. Despite his coming to the mainstream fore speaking of the need to defend civil liberties, Barack Obama has accelerated the authority of the government to new heights. Obama has grabbed the authority to kill American citizens anywhere in the world. He has put closing Guantanamo on the back burner. Obama’s civil liberties problem was made clear as well by his firing of Shirley Sherrod on the grounds of a sloppy hit job by Andrew Breitbart. Any administration that would fire a public servant so quickly on such shaky grounds must have some sort of anxiety about its power.

For Obama’s Napoleonism, the ACLU has acted as a modern day Snowball, defending against the frightening precedent of a president being able to eliminate Americans by executive order.  In a suit filed against the government, the ACLU argued that the Obama administration had “asserted authority to use lethal force against US citizens located far from any battlefield without charge, trial, or judicial process of any kind.”

The ACLU is also victim to a lot of misinformation, including the urban legend that they had filed suit to have crosses removed from graveyards. In fact, in 1999, they did precisely the opposite:

WEST PALM BEACH, FL — In the first case to be filed under Florida’s new Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida goes to trial today on behalf of seven families seeking to prevent the removal and destruction of religious symbols placed at the gravesites of their loved ones.

At issue is the City of Boca Raton’s threat to remove various vertical memorials, including Christian crosses, Stars of David and other religious symbols, from cemetery plots at the Boca Raton Community Cemetery. The ACLU will argue that under the new law, passed in 1998, removal of religious items from grave sites would constitute a substantial burden on religion.

The brilliance of the American constitution is not anarcho-libertarianism – it’s a balance of power through checks and balances. The ACLU is a great bulwart against granted authority becoming too powerful.

TomStrong

State Debt A Problem Well In Advance Of Great Recession

Fiscal Policy, Government Incompetence, Government Waste

I saw a chart today that took me aback. At the Cato @ Liberty blog, a look at aggregate state debt over the last decade:

I had well expected that state governments were growing their budget in accordance with the boom economies of the past decade (especially rising property tax collections through the boom), but hadn’t realized that they were piling on loads of debt ON TOP OF that new spending.

Of course, I don’t labor under the false belief that state governments are fiscally responsible, but one would have thought that they might have been happy to spend merely the new windfalls they were reaping in revenues, not far outstrip those windfalls with added debt-fueled spending.

Napoleon said “Never ascribe to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence.” I certainly think there’s incompetence involved, but I’m not sure the explanation is adequate.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Quote Of The Day

Economics, Founding Fathers, History, Quote of the Day, Taxation

On taxes in Boston:

The business of the Town is still decaying, the taxes are not at all lessened, but continue very high — A great many of our industrious inhabitants are gone into the country, the burden now falls on a small number; and they less able to bear it than ever — This number is still decreasing; the rich complain of their rates, and some have moved and others are about moving into the country towns, where they are greatly eased. For my own part, I have a love for my native Town, but as my taxes are so large, I am resolved to move my family into the country.

That, of course, was June 1755, on a front-page letter to the Boston Gazette.

Today’s equivalent would be moving production of goods to low-cost business climates (Nevada, Tennessee, or offshore) rather than just a few towns away, but the economic laws are no different today than they were 255 years ago.

Quote from Samuel Adams: A Life by Ira Stoll [p.27].

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/
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