Free speech for me but not for thee. ACLU busted!

I know you are a Laywer, Om Sig but I must inform you that you are wrong. Mr. Blatham says so and despite the fact that you have practiced law for many years and are an EXPERT on the Second Amendment, his opinion must trump yours.

Do you know why Om Sig? Because he is Mr. Blatham and, I must warn you, do not contradict him too often because he will advise others not to interact with you.

He is, of course, some sort of A2K "watchdog" who allows only certain ideas to be advanced. Or so he thinks.

Part way there. Progress.

But what is that something that "revolves around..."? Let's ask the question this way...why did your founders object to laws which might "establish" religion? What would/might be lost if government did this?

Blatham, what progress? I cited an example and you have yet to address the example.

Absolutely happy to. But not yet. Your initial claim was that the ACLU has often worked in opposition to their stated principles. The writer in your link argues that they perceive an instance of this failure, specifically related to religion. Might be. But in order to figure out whether the charge is valid or not valid, we first have to be clear on:
1) what is the principle that the ACLU ought to follow?
2) what is the principle that they are following?

That is what I said, blatham. I stand by that statement, as would millions of Americans I am most confident. I then cited an example, which related to the establishment of religion. I am still waiting.

I've long been fascinated with wolves presenting themselves in sheeps clothing. Note the "civil liberties" central to the name of the ACLU. At least some of the founders of this organization were socialists or communists, hardly the champions of civil liberties. What a laugh. Also note most communist countries like to use names purporting to be run by "the people," such as China, "The Peoples Republic of China." Does anyone think the people came first? It should have been named "Mao Tse Tungs Republic of China."

Another example of the hypocrisy of the ACLU is their defense of demonstrators disrupting and disturbing funerals of fallen soldiers. In the name of freedom of speech. Give me a break. What about the right to privacy? I would think a funeral should deserve some privacy and protection from disturbance for family members. Sick, sick, sick, blatham. I have to ask myself what kind of people run this sick outfit?

My whole point, blatham, is that they pick certain cases based on their built in bias, and so therefore they are very inconsistent. I find it even surprising that anyone could disagree with this obvious track record.

Okie, you must be aware that Mr. Blatham is new to the US, having immigrated from Canada, where, as I have heard, he may have been a Canadian Mounted Policeman( that would account for his peremptory sermons which come down from the Canadian Olympus) but he obviously does not know very much about the ACLU. Note below the ACLU statement of Principles:

The mission of the ACLU is to preserve all of these protections and guarantees:

Your First Amendment rights-freedom of speech, association and assembly. Freedom of the press, and freedom of religion supported by the strict separation of church and state.

Your right to equal protection under the law - equal treatment regardless of race, sex, religion or national origin.

Your right to due process - fair treatment by the government whenever the loss of your liberty or property is at stake.

Your right to privacy - freedom from unwarranted government intrusion into your personal and private affairs.

Now, Okie, I recall that the ACLU defended the rights of a quasi-Nazi group( Armbands, uniforms and all) to assemble and speak for hours in a park in Skokie Illinois( a suburb with many Jewish residents including some who survived the Holocaust).

The very irate Keltic Wizard, who would shut down the free speech rights of the Anti-Abortion groups who counsel women not to have abortions, ADMITS that the Anti-Abortion groups are NOT violating the law(Keltic Wizard would fervently wish that such a law wouldbe passed--no hope of that, of course).

A GROUP WITHIN THE ACLU HAVE STATED THAT THE ACLU'S OPPOSITION TO THE ANTI-ABORTION GROUPS V I O L A T E S THE BASIC PRINCIPLE THE ACLU STANDS FOR AS ELUCIDATED IN THE LIST OF PRINCIPLES ABOVE!!!

okie wrote

Of course, it's also the case that a 2002 Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient (presented by President Bush) who is also a member of the Wall Street Journal Board of Editors and who is a John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and one of the most significant individuals behind the modern neoconservative movement deeply influential in the Bush administration was a Trotskyite (Irving Kristol, father to William Kristol) Equally laughable?


Deceitful manipulation of language, which George Orwell has written about better than anyone, is a key means to spotting the bad guys. Here's another example of the euphemistically-named sort you allude to... "Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse" which is actually a tobacco industry front group.

Unfortunately, the mere presence of "citizens" or "justice" or "freedom" or "American Patriots for __" or some such in a name doesn't tell us anything for sure.


I understand that that is your claim. The problem is that you make it with about the same level of carefulness or intellectual rigor that one can see with a fundamentalist Muslim speaking about the US.

So, the real question here is, do you have the courage to dig in and really investigate whether your claim about inconsistency of principles has merit, using the religious freedom case above?

Okie, the immigrant from Canada references Irving Kristol. What a hoot. The Mountie's ignorance is massive.

Here is what Irving Kristol wrote in his book"Neoconservatism"

As the New Left( the scumbag draft dodging hippies, Okie) began to reshape liberalism...and eventually to reshape the Democratic Party, the disenchanted liberals began to find themselves harboring all kinds of conservative instincts and ideas"


That was in 1965, Okie.

Mr.Kristol and some of his cohorts were brilliant enough to reject the quasi-communist, hippie hate America movement out of hand because they learned that Communism was poison- As did Arthur Koestler.

Mr. Blatham appears to have memorized only a few lines from his Political Science classes. His key appears to be--
Men are born free but everywhere they are in chains( except in Canada)

So, the real question here is, do you, blatham, have the courage to rebut the example I provided? Tick tock tick tock tick tock..............
If you keep stalling, I might decide to research the subject more than 5 minutes and bury you with more examples besides the one I gave.

As I said, quite happy to take it up. We can do it with care, checking out the story from multiple sources to ascertain veracity. Then we can look at how the relevant principles fall out in the case and see whether your claim has merit.

So, you have my promise to do as I've just said. If I don't keep that promise, then you can quote this post and publicly declare me untrustworthy or cowardly.

But now let's have a demonstration from you that you have the capacity/willingness to carefully investigate a matter rather than merely toss out cliches and poorly substantiated charges. I suspect you fully understand, your suggestions notwithstanding, that I'm not intimidated here.

How to say absolutely NOTHING in three paragraphs when you don't know what to say----
starring the Canadian Mounted Policeman--Sgt.Blatham

As I said, quite happy to take it up. We can do it with care, checking out the story from multiple sources to ascertain veracity. Then we can look at how the relevant principles fall out in the case and see whether your claim has merit.

So, you have my promise to do as I've just said. If I don't keep that promise, then you can quote this post and publicly declare me untrustworthy or cowardly.

But now let's have a demonstration from you that you have the capacity/willingness to carefully investigate a matter rather than merely toss out cliches and poorly substantiated charges. I suspect you fully understand, your suggestions notwithstanding, that I'm not intimidated here.


If the Sargeant will read this thread from the beginning, he will indeed learn the truth. He will not, I am sure so I will do it for him. He, as a knee jerk liberal, will not, of course, accept the truth. But others reading the material will.

BALDIMO BUSTED. This illustrates the danger of having less than able minds analyzing anything more complicated than Curious George.

"Fair and balanced" Faux news, being smoked alive, cuts quickly to a commercial break. Video available which illustrates both the poor quality of their "newscasters" and their loaded repuglican agenda.

Even if this statement has any degree of veracity, [it's always suspect coming from B's mouth] that has got to be the epitomy of irony. The group that is mostly responsible for protecting the rights and freedoms enshrined in the US constitution was started by communists.

I have a feeling that,without the ACLU, the country would be pretty far along in being a fascist state.

Advocate and JTT are invited to prove that the following is not accurate--

They wont because they cant..


America's Communist Lawyers' Union
The Omega Letter ^ | 12-2-04 | Jack Kinsella

America's Communist Lawyers' Union

The ACLU's holy war against the Boy Scouts, the LA County Official Seal (containing a tiny Cross), holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas -- and even the Constitution itself -- has unmasked the ACLU as a tyrant less interested in civil rights than imposing judicial restraints that amount to suppression of majority rights by a tiny minority.



The ACLU claims to be an unbiased, "neither conservative or liberal" organization devoted exclusively to protecting the civil liberties of all Americans. But their record proves just the opposite.




ACLU Founder Roger Baldwin admitted as much, saying for the record that; "Civil liberties, like democracy, are useful only as tools for social change."




Although they claim to defend constitutional rights, they don't even believe in the document as written. They say that, "The Constitution as originally conceived was deeply flawed." They even go so far as to brag, "The ACLU was the missing ingredient that made our constitutional system finally work."




Roger Baldwin was a student of communist Emma Goldman who tutored him in subversive ideology of Lenin, together with secular humanism. He claimed Emma as "one of the chief inspirations of his life".




During World War 1 Baldwin worked in the Bureau of Conscientious Objectors, a division of AUAM, to help draft dodgers with resistance and provide legal and financial aid.




This resulted in controversy and Baldwin renamed the organization The Civil Liberties Bureau to avoid some of the flack. Roger refused to tone down his liberal talk and the AUAM sought a split, which resulted in the bureau renaming again; The National Civil Liberties Bureau.




One paper Baldwin wrote for the Bureau was called "unmailable" by the Post Office because of "radical and subversive views" which resulted in a FBI raid on their offices. Shortly thereafter he was drafted and upon resisting and openly spouting social reform propaganda, was imprisoned for a year.




In 1920 he moved his offices in with the Communist Party's paper, New Masses and renamed the group a final time to the ACLU. He developed many ties with the communist movement and even wrote a book, "Liberty Under the Soviets", which bragged about the "liberty won for anti-religion".




Baldwin admitted in his book; "I joined. I don't regret being a part of the Communist tactic, which increased the effectiveness of a good cause. I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the Communists wanted…"




The ACLU was founded at a party attended by Socialist Party notable Norman Thomas, future Communist Party chairman Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, and Soviet agent Agnes Smedley.




In 1920, Rev. Harry Ward, the 'Red Dean' of the Union Theological Seminary was Chairman, Baldwin was director, and Communist publisher Louis Budenz, who would later go on to testify against Communism, director of publicity.




Other Communist and radical founders included William Z. Foster, author of "Toward Soviet America," Harold J. Laski, Morris Hilquit, A.J.Muste, Scott Nearing, Eugene V. Debs, and John Dewey.




The 1930's membership would include such radicals and change agents as Vito Marcantonio, Haywood Broun, Corliss Lamont, and Bishop G. Bromley Oxnan.




The 1940's roll would include George S. Counts, Norman Cousins, Melvyn Douglas, Robert M. Hutchins, and Freda Kirchwey.




Most prominent American luminaries of the left were, and are, members of the ACLU.







In 1988, it barred a doctor from telling a Kansas man's former wife that her ex-husband had tested positive for AIDS. In the words of the director of the ACLU's Privacy and Technology Project, "The benefits of confidentiality outweigh the possibility that somebody may be injured."




In 1997, the ACLU convinced the Supreme Court to protect the rights of pornographers on the Internet - including the right to show their images to children.




In May 2000, Arizona Governor Jane Hull issued a proclamation celebrating the birth of Buddha. An ACLU spokesperson said, "Although we may think proclamations are inappropriate, they may not violate the Constitution




Among the ACLU's pantheon of victories are cases involving the defense of Communists, anarchists, Ku Klux Klansmen, and those who sought to overthrow American government.




In order for the ACLU to tear down constitutional barriers to governmental power, they must extinguish America's fundamental belief in God, since such a belief is an essential denial of the supreme power of government.




According to the Declaration of Independence, rights come from God, not government. When God's presence in the American mindset ceases, however, people no longer look to God as the grantor of rights but to government.




Therefore, the ACLU argues that the more power the government has, the better off the people under it are. If one looks at the history of the Soviet Union and any other Communist country, one will be apt to find Communist leaders who predicated their form of government on atheism and a secular state religion.




The ACLU has been so successful that even the Declaration of Independence can be interpreted as unconstitutional, if the argument is framed properly.

Bernard, thanks for the review of a few snapshots of the history of this wonderful organization!

Where do you kooks get these ideas?

Okay, okay, okay, so you are not intimidated, I'm glad. The balls been in your court for a long time, blatham. Shoot it, take a dribble, do something. Its been so long since I provided you the example, I've pretty much forgotten what it was, but have at it, go find the example several pages back, and do something with it if you finally feel like it.