GayPatriot

The Internet home for American gay conservatives.

ACLU does something right

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As political lobbies go, the ACLU is infuriating because they are so often wrong, left-oriented and Social Justice Warrior-ish. For example, they defend racial preferences (also known as racism) in college admissions. But on rare occasions, they will get something incredibly right.

In this instance, the ACLU challenges advertising restrictions in our nation’s capital from DC Metro:

The ACLU, ACLU of D.C., and ACLU of Virginia are teaming up to represent a diverse group of plaintiffs whose ads were all branded as too hot for transit: the ACLU itself; Carafem, a health care network that specializes in getting women access to birth control and medication abortion; People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA); and Milo Worldwide LLC — the corporate entity of provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos.

To put it mildly, these plaintiffs have nothing in common politically. But together, they powerfully illustrate the indivisibility of the First Amendment. Our free speech rights rise and fall together — whether left, right, pro-choice, anti-choice, vegan, carnivore, or none of the above…

Let’s start with the ACLU. Earlier this year…the ACLU decided to remind everyone about that very first promise in the Bill of Rights: that Congress shall make no law interfering with our freedoms of speech and religion. As part of a broad advertising campaign, the ACLU erected ads in numerous places, featuring the text of the First Amendment. Not only in English, but in Spanish and Arabic, too — to remind people that the Constitution is for everyone.

ACLU intended their First Amendment campaign stupidly as an anti-Trump thing; but the ads themselves merely stated the text of the First Amendment, which people on the Left definitely need to be reminded of. Beautiful! But then:

Our ad was rejected because WMATA’s advertising policies forbid, among many other things, advertisements “intended to influence members of the public regarding an issue on which there are varying opinions” or “intended to influence public policy.”

Get it? The wise authorities at DC Metro refuse to let the First Amendment be posted on their trains. The mere text of the First Amendment! As to the Milo aspect:

Milo Worldwide submitted ads that displayed only Mr. Yiannopoulos’s face, an invitation to pre-order his new book, “Dangerous,” and one of four short quotations from different publications: “The most hated man on the Internet” from The Nation; “The ultimate troll” from Fusion; “The Kanye West of Journalism” from Red Alert Politics; and “Internet Supervillain” from Out Magazine…the ads themselves were innocuous, and self-evidently not an attempt to influence any opinion other than which book to buy.

WMATA appeared to be okay with that. It accepted the ads and displayed them in Metro stations and subway cars — until riders began to complain about Mr. Yiannopoulos being allowed to advertise his book. Just 10 days after the ads went up, WMATA directed its agents to take them all down…

The ideas espoused by each of these four plaintiffs are anathema to someone — as is pretty much every human idea. By rejecting these ads and accepting ads from gambling casinos, military contractors, and internet sex apps, WMATA showed just how subjective its ban is. Even more frightening, however, WMATA’s policy is an attempt to silence anyone who tries to make you think.

Bingo.

Remember when lefties liked free speech? (or claimed to)

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Something in Bruce’s Twitter stream got me to notice this petition on Daily Kos, which is

…calling on Congress and the States [to] Act now to do whatever is within your power to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United.

I don’t know when DK started the petition; probably a few years ago. But it’s still active. Now, in terms of the U.S. constitution, what caused the Citizens United decision? As Justice Kennedy wrote in 2010 for the majority:

If the First Amendment has any force, it prohibits Congress from fining or jailing citizens, or associations of citizens, for simply engaging in political speech.

So, the principle of Free Speech caused the decision. The First Amendment right of citizens, or associations of citizens, to engage in political speech – is what the decision expresses and defends.

If we do the math, the Daily Kos petition is effectively:

…calling on Congress and the States [to] Act now to do whatever is within your power to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn free speech.

…calling on Congress and the States [to] Act now to do whatever is within your power to pass a constitutional amendment to overturn the First Amendment right of citizens, or associations of citizens, to engage in political speech.

Example #12,770 of leftism actually being fascism and vice versa.

UPDATE: Something more current…With approval from the National Science Foundation, Indiana University researchers spent $1 million of taxpayer money on activities to silence non-leftie voices on Twitter. Here’s another link.

Rationalizing restrictions on free speech

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Can you imagine an article like this appearing when Bush was president?  No, back then it was considered “patriotic” for the press to disclose classified information,  even when the information was incorrect or false, so the idea of the press reflecting on the Bush administration’s “struggles” with issues of free expression was unthinkable.  But when Obama wants to stomp on press freedoms for any reason, the press decides to be “reflective” and “philosophical” about the issue.  Craven rationalizations for restricting press freedoms under Obama are to be expected.  I particularly like this reader’s comment which I saw when I originally read the article:  “You are surprised Obama is stepping on the 1st Amendment? He tried to stomp on the 2nd Amendment for over a year now! The only Amendment this Administration seems to think is important is the 5th Amendment so they can hide behind it.”

And don’t think for a moment that it’s just the Obama administration.  No, it’s pretty widespread throughout the Democrat party.  Consider Dick Durbin’s (D-IL) thoughts about whether or not free speech ought to apply to bloggers:

Fox News host Chris Wallace asked Senator Dick Durbin whether Barack Obama’s promise to have Eric Holder look into cases of abuse that he personally approved represents a conflict of interest, but Durbin dodges that question and talks instead about the shield law proposed repeatedly over the last few years as the appropriate Congressional response to the scandal.  However, Durbin asks what exactly “freedom of the press” means in 2013, and wonders aloud whether it would include bloggers, Twitter users, and the rest of the Internet media [Video at the link].
Of course this sort of thing has a long history on college campuses, where different species of activists–the core of the Democrats’ left wing constituency–always want to restrict free speech.  Not surprisingly, Facebook is also being pressured to restrict freedom of speech among its users.
Facebook on Tuesday acknowledged that its systems to identify and remove hate speech had not worked effectively, as it faced pressure from feminist groups that want the site to ban pages that glorify violence against women.
The activists, who sent more than 5,000 e-mails to Facebook’s advertisers and elicited more than 60,000 posts on Twitter, also prompted Nissan and more than a dozen smaller companies to say that they would withdraw advertising from the site.
In a blog post, Facebook said its “systems to identify and remove hate speech have failed to work as effectively as we would like, particularly around issues of gender-based hate.” The company said it would review how it dealt with such content, update training for its employees, increase accountability — including requiring that users use their real identities when creating content — and establish more direct lines of communication with women’s groups and other entities.
Never fear, though, misandry and hatred of conservatives will still remain in fashion.