In my 30+ years of supporting the ACLU in general and local chapters of it, I would have to say that to claim they have been fully consistent on any particular narrow issue either in any given year or especially over time would be quite an overstatement of it. But, in general, the ACLU really does work and has consistently, or even one could say constantly, worked to advance the cause of civil liberties, especially those of speech and religion. Have they taken positions I think are wrong -- oh yeah. And do they have righteous disagreements about what positions to take? -- oh yeah. Are they monolithic? Not at all. One of the real curiousities to me is that so many people who claim to be for liberty and against government control are against the ACLU. I recall in the days of Skokie that so many Jewish people I knew put the ACLU at the top of their s**t lists -- not seeing the importance of groups like the ACLU in protecting freedoms for some as protecting them for us all. I think a lot of the dislike (and stronger) directed at the ACLU is misdirected or comes not from a sense of liberties being protected but much more from a sense of whose ox is being gored at the particular time. Free speech is not, in the main, popular. Steve -- Prof. Steven D. Jamar vox: 202-806-8017 Howard University School of Law fax: 202-806-8428 2900 Van Ness Street NW mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Washington, DC 20008 http://www.law.howard.edu/faculty/pages/jamar "Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think." - Martin Luther King Jr., "Strength to Love", 1963 |
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