ACLU Is For 'Free Speech' Except When...

[Annie]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008421#hastert

BY JAMES TARANTO
Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:04 p.m. EDT

Paying Tribute to Liberal Virtue
"The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration," reports the New York Times:

"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.

"Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising," the proposals state.

Given the organization's longtime commitment to defending free speech, some former board members were shocked by the proposals.
​

No kidding! The ACLU champions "whistleblowers" who reveal national-security secrets, but there are limits. When free speech threatens ACLU fund-raising efforts, why that just goes too far.

Amusingly, the Times couldn't find anyone who would speak in defense of the proposed policy. This is as close as anyone would come:

Anthony D. Romero, the A.C.L.U.'s executive director, said that he had not yet read the proposals and that it would be premature to discuss them before the board reviews them at its June meeting. . . .

Lawrence A. Hamermesh, chairman of the committee, which was formed to define rights and responsibilities of board members, also said it was too early to discuss the proposals, as did Alison Steiner, a committee member who filed a dissent against some recommendations. . . .

Susan Herman, a Brooklyn Law School professor who serves on the board, said board members and others were jumping to conclusions.

"No one is arguing that board members have no right to disagree or express their own point of view," Ms. Herman said. "Many of us simply think that in exercising that right, board members should also consider their fiduciary duty to the A.C.L.U. and its process ideals."
​

On a different subject but a similar theme, check out this passage from a Times report on Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's commencement address at Boston College, which prompted some hippies to protest:

The campus African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American organization sent a letter to the administration asking that it "stop touting Secretary Rice's race and gender [sic] as justification for her invitation."​

Of course, if the members of the campus African-American, Hispanic, Asian, and Native American organization didn't want to go to a school with a commitment to diversity, they should have thought of that before enrolling at BC. (Hat tip: Tom Maguire.)

Hypocrisy, La Rochefoucauld observed, is the tribute that vice pays to virtue. The left loves to point out instances in which conservative moralists fail to abide by their ideals. This, however, is a human failing, not a left- or right-wing one.

 

[dilloduck]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008421#hastert

I heard an ex-board member commenting about this on Fox today. AWWWww----trouble in paradise ?? :teeth:

 

[Abbey Normal]

No kidding! The ACLU champions "whistleblowers" who reveal national-security secrets, but there are limits. When free speech threatens ACLU fund-raising efforts, why that just goes too far.

:rotflmao:

:teeth:

Dream post!
Kath, you know I can never get enough of light being shed on ACLU hypocrisy (pardon the redundancy).

Sorry, I tried: "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Kathianne again".

 

[Annie]

:rotflmao:

:teeth:

Dream post!
Kath, you know I can never get enough of light being shed on ACLU hypocrisy (pardon the redundancy).

Sorry, I tried: "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Kathianne again".

LOL, you know what they say, 'it's the thought that counts.' It holds!

 

[Abbey Normal]

LOL, you know what they say, 'it's the thought that counts.' It holds!

I'll just have to make it up lto you laterz.

 

[Annie]

I'll just have to make it up lto you laterz.

that bolded part!

 

[theHawk]

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Kathianne again.

 

[Annie]

It's the thought...

 

[007]

But you know there'll only be a couple mentions of this, probably only by Fox News, and then it'll be forgotten. Just like the little drunken kennedy lush that crashed his car outrunning the cops. The liberal drive-by MSM won't go near it. They're not going to do anything to harm their liberal friends. Same with the aclu.

It's a travesty.

 

[rtwngAvngr]

The ACLU are Nazis.

 

[ScreamingEagle]

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008421#hastert
"The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration," reports the New York Times:

"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.

Whatever happened to the "civil liberties" in the American Civil Liberties Union?

Exactly how Communists operate.
They will tell you what you can say and what you can't say.
The ACLU is all about control, not freedom.
The ACLU is a fraud.

 

[Bonnie]

:rotflmao:

:teeth:

Dream post!
Kath, you know I can never get enough of light being shed on ACLU hypocrisy (pardon the redundancy).

Sorry, I tried: "You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to Kathianne again".

I can't either