ACLU Requests Speech Codes

[Tony]

Hmmm..and when this thread slows down, please let us know what you think of Amnesty

Yeah man, human rights suck!!!!

 

[Elind]

That's not my opinion, but I get your take on criticism, implied, of icons whatever they do.

 

[Art Vandelay]

Er, yes, because the ACLU doesn't have anything to do with private companies like MS. Their sole concern is government.

http://www.aclu.org/womensrights/employ/25392prs20060502.html

Oh, it gets better than that. In trying to defend that crap, the ACLU's Executive Director said, "Take hate speech," he said. "While believing in free speech, we do not believe in or condone speech that attacks minorities."

I don't get it. Do you think that they should condone such speech?

As long as, apparently, the ACLU gets to choose the minorities and define the speech which is hateful.

Where did you get that?

 

[NoZed Avenger]

Well, it may be a while before I can go looking with any seriousness -- called to trial next week.

The cookie issue that I thought I remembered may have been tied to inforamtion being given to a government entity, so I'll have to hold off until I can check that. I may well be off base, but it will be a bit before I can go hunting.

 

[Skeptic]

You must be really, really old.

PS and hey oh btw ACLU: shove this up your protest sign

http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/24/military.funerals.ap/index.html

The photo camption: "Isahiah something-Phleps..."

Jeez, is there anybody in Fred Phelp's "God hates fags" church except for members of his extended family?

 

[Euromutt]

I'll have to try and free time up to look, but I thought some of their criticism on the provacy/cookie issue was also aimed at corps.

Perhaps, but only insofar as a corporation seeks to intrude upon its employees' freedoms in way which do not pertain to the functioning of the company. For example, the ACLU would not consider a standard non-disclosure agreement to be a violation of the employee's right to free speech, but it would have a problem with a corporation telling an employee he can't write certain things in his personal blog, even if said things have no bearing on the company.

 

[epepke]

I somewhat confused on your position. The way I read the ACLU quote is that they are FOR free speech, but they don't necessarily agree with the content of that free speech.

As I see it, it could go both ways. Yours is a charitable interpretation.

I see three problems:

1) The parallelism of "believe in free speech" and "not believe in...speech that attacks minorities. Yes, you could insert a mental "the content of" in the ellipses, but they didn't.

2) The word "condone" (which was in the ellipses above). It means that the condoner is in the position of judging something an offense and forgiving it without protest or censure. I don't think that it is the purpose of the ACLU to do this.

3) The fact that it's so easy to state what you just said in plain language, as evinced by the fact that you just did it.

I fear that they're moving in the direction of fulfilling a prophesy. Ever since Joe McCarthy (falsly) said that the ACLU was on a list of communist organizations, conservatives have been bashing them. Mostly, and most of the time, the ACLU proved them wrong. I don't want to see the ACLU move in a direction that proves them right, and there is at least cause for concern that they may be doing so.

 

[Art Vandelay]

You don't think that it is consistent with the purpose of the ACLU to criticize speech?

If they can criticize ending Affirmative Action, surely they can criticize racism.

 

[luchog]

The photo camption: "Isahiah something-Phleps..."

Jeez, is there anybody in Fred Phelp's "God hates fags" church except for members of his extended family?

No, there isn't. Aside from a couple of nutjobs, one who left and another who eventually married one of his daughters, there have never been any members of Phelps' church who were not from his own family; though others have been manipulated or coerced into attending briefly.