The ACL Who??

Posted on October 12, 2005 by me

All my life I’ve heard about the American Civil Liberties Union, those champions of our Constitutional rights, whose stated goal is to “defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person … by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” It sounds great; I wish it was true.

Most non-liberals will probably tell you that the ACLU is an ultra-liberal, anti-Christian, power-hungry group whose real goal is to force everyone in the USA to live like the ACLU wants us to live. I think there’s a very good reason to believe that this is not far from the truth. I don’t know why, but I just assumed that the ACLU started out with good, upstanding goals and over the years has morphed into the strange group that currently exists. I was quite surprised to find out that they started out as possibly even more extreme than they are today.

According to Wikipedia, my trusted source of information (it’s open-source, so it must be true!), the ACLU was formed in 1917, having its roots in an organization formed to protest US involvement in World War I, and provided legal aid to those being prosecuted under the Espionage and Sedition Acts. A nobel beginning, indeed.

One of the ACLU’s most celebrated founders was Roger Nash Baldwin, who held both socialist and anarchist ideas. His marriage vows included the line, “the present institution of marriage among us is a grim mockery of essential freedom…” Sounds like a great start for a marriage. It’s no surprise, then, that the ACLU has recently defended polygamists, child pornographers, and other wonderful pillars of society.

Oh, here’s another quote by Baldwin:

“I am for Socialism, disarmament, and ultimately the abolishing of the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.”

And he called the orgainzation the American Civil Liberties Union?

The ACLU today is really keen on the Separation of Church and State, which as we all know is not even in the Constitution (more on this another time). They have interpreted the “Separation of Church and State” to mean “we shall not mention God at all, in any public place.” You’d think, if this was what the founding fathers meant by, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .” they wouldn’t have put “In God We Trust” on our money. But then, common sense is not a characteristic of the ACLU.

As with the church and state issue, the ACLU seems to specialize in warping and stretching the various amendments to fit their agenda, such as stretching the 4th Amendment to imply a “right to privacy,” then stretching that to include the right to an abortion. They may be wackos, but they are not to be “misunderestimated.”

As mentioned earlier, they currently support the right to be a pornographer, the right to be addicted to heroin, and the right to bigamy. They do, however, interpret the 2nd Amendment rather narrowly, saying it is “primarily a collective one, intended mainly to protect the right of the states to maintain militias to assure their own freedom and security against the central government,” a quote from the ACLU’s website. (So, apparently individuals can only be armed if they are in groups, fighting the Federal government.) Evidently, to the ACLU, not all Constitutional Rights are created equal.

I admit I was wrong in my perceptions of the ACLU. I had come to view them as liberal extremists; however, they may actually be anarchists just masquerading as liberals. Whatever their philosophy and motivation, it is clear that their goal is something other than protecting our Constitutional rights.

I hear that there is a new book out, called The ACLU vs. America. I haven’t read it, but it may be worth checking out.

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Freedom of Stupidity or When Freedoms Collide

Posted on October 7, 2005 by me

If you haven’t heard about this, a female passenger flying from LAX to Portland on Tuesday was “excused” from the plane at a stop in Reno for wearing an obscene t-shirt. She is now claiming her 1st Amendment rights have been violated. The NY Times has quoted an ACLU lawyer as saying her t-shirt was protected under the Constitution. I’ll have to remember that the next time my wife wants to throw away one of my favorite old t-shirts.

When I first heard this story, I wondered why it was that the only time Oregon is ever in the news is when a wacko is involved? I was glad to find out that the woman was not an Oregonian – she is actually a Washington resident. Whew! At least we don’t have to claim her. (If you question my use of the word “wacko” here, just listen to an interview with Ms. Heasley…)

But, this is the deal: Is every stupid thing we say or do protected by the First Amendment? It would seem so.

Now, Oregon is a different story, as the Oregon Constitution states, “No law shall be passed restraining the free expression of opinion, or restricting the right to speak, write or print freely on any subject whatever.” Last week the OR Supreme Court extended that to include obscene acts, as long as they are “expressive. ” So, we have yet another Oregon “wacko” story. So far, this isn’t U.S Constitutional issue. However, Oregon’s physician-assisted suicide law is. But, let’s try to forget Oregon’s problems for the time being.

One of the problems with some libertarians and liberals (and, yes, even some conservatives) is that they tend to be myopic. Failing to look at an issue holistically, they see the issue in its isolated, out-of-context form, where it’s easier to take extremist, absolutist (and often absurdist) positions. Certainly, you can look at the issue of freedom, of which I am a very strong proponent, and take a position that your freedoms are absolute, and guaranteed by the Constitution (or even by God). You could – and you’d be wrong. But, under the Constitution, you do have an absolute right to be wrong.

This is one of the great things about America: you have the right to be completely and utterly wrong, and to be completely and utterly wrong as loud as you want to be. Unless…

Unless your rights collide with another individual’s rights. Oops…, didn’t think that far ahead. What happens when your inalienable rights cross paths with someone else’s conflicting inalienable rights? Who, then, has the right of way (get it? That was a pun.)

Somewhere along the way, we need to realize that our inherent, inalienable rights are not absolute. (By the way, the words “inherent” and “inalienable” are from the Declaration of Independence, not the Constitution, and these rights include, “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” Someday I’ll write about how theologically ridiculous this is.)

The Bill of Rights does not talk about “inherent and inalienable” rights – it specifically grants rights on the Consitution’s own authority. Have you ever read the First Amendment? It’s really quite simple:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

So simple, and the cause of so much litigation. The concept of a Bill of Rights was in itself fairly controversial; if the founding fathers had ever imagined what people would do to it, I doubt it ever would have been ratified. Common sense (that is, the most basic, elementary thinking of which nearly everyone should be capable) should tell us that there are times when our rights have to give way to others’ rights.

Consider, for a moment, the free exercise of religion. If your religion involved human sacrifice, your rights are limited. You have freedom of speech, but try yelling, “bomb!” on an airplane. Your rights end at the point where they interfere with someone else’s rights. In this case, Southwest Airlines has rights, to, which include deplaning someone wearing an obscene shirt – it’s in their terms of service.

So, Ms. Heasley, just get over it.

Posted in Random Thoughts | 1 Comment

A Plea to the Republican Party

Posted on October 4, 2005 by me

First, I want to make it clear that I am not a die-hard Republican. I try to avoid being categorized, but for the sake of summarizing my political worldview, I probably fall somewhere in the libertarian/conservative categories on most issues. So, in spite of my feelings that the current two-party system has become counter-productive, I tend to favor the GOP.

I disagree with conservatives who take a “head in the ground” approach (which I’m afraid to say, many do); that is to say, those who are conservative out of a fear of change. The “radical righters” are even worse – although I may share some of their opinions, they scare me. I disagree more with those liberals who tend to be so open minded that their critical thinking skills have been lost. I disagree alot with those liberals who actually know why they are liberal, as those folks are also quite scary. I refer to them as the Great Liberal Conspiracy. You know who you are.

Now, not that anyone of importance will read this post (my 11 readers are not political movers and shakers), but I just have a couple of things to say to the Republican party:

  1. You’re supposed to be the conservative party
  2. That means you’re supposed to belive in a small Federal Government
  3. That also means you believe in spending less

So, can you people take a couple of steps back, look at what you’ve been doing, and just knock it off??

That’s all I have to say about that.

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First Impressions

Posted on October 3, 2005 by me

Koontz Cover

My all-time favorite author has to be James Blaylock. However, as he hasn’t written a new novel in years, I had to find someone to fill the void, and so stumbled upon Dean Koontz. Although his work is somewhat inconsistent, and I don’t think any of his books would be in the running for “Great American Novel,” there are a few of his novels that have to rank among my list of favorites.

Having just finished one of Koontz’ earlier novels on a flight home from Chicago, with a few days of well-earned vacation ahead of me, I needed to find something new to read. So, I stopped at a Barnes & Noble and grabbed By the Light of the Moon, which, although first published in 2002, I hadn’t yet read. I think I am going to enjoy this one, if the first line is any indication.

I really appreciate good first lines. I have come up with several of my own – the problem is developing the rest of the story to go with it. My favorite original line is, “For once there was no rain in the city.” (I don’t really care if you agree, so don’t bother writing with your comments.)

The first line of this book is probably one of the best I have read, right up there with “Call me Ishmael,” “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…,” and “Last night, I dreamt I went to Manderley again.”

Without any further ado, here it is:

“Shortly before being knocked unconscious and bound to a chair, before being injected with an unknown substance against his will, and before discovering that the world was deeply mysterious in ways he’d never before imagined, Dylan O’Connor left his motel room and walked across the highway to a brightly lighted fast-food franchise to buy cheeseburgers, French fries, pocket pies with apple filing, and a vanilla milkshake.”

Okay, it doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as easily as “Call me Ishmael,” but personally, I love it. It’s all I needed to read to decide that this was the next novel to which I was willing to devote time.

So, why am I sitting here writing instead of reading? I have no clue….

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