As I listen to right wing demogogues complain about the ACLU, I want to vomit... if you look at the Republican platform, they will pay lip service to the importance of liberty and the bill of rights... theoretically, liberals are the party of big government intervention... and theoretically, conservatives appreciate and cherish the Bill of Rights and the Constitution...
And yet, for some reason I can not fathom, the Republican talking heads/propaganda machine can not stand the ACLU... on paper, the ACLU is the most conservative organization in the country... defending, for example, the American Nazi Party's right to assemble is VERY conservative... you see, if you're a conservative, the Bill of Rights is important enough to look past your personal preferences and see the big picture... if you're a conservative, the fact that you may find the American Nazi Party offensive is in no way relevant to the main idea of protecting our First Amendment rights... I really don't understand...
On second thought, I do understand... to return to a theme from an earlier post, the Republicans are dead... the Neo-Cons are unfortunately alive and well... and one of the things the Neo-Cons value most is control... to a Neo-Con, the Bill of Rights is an archaic road block to their goal of doing whatever the f**k they want to do... I wish more people realized that the Neo-Cons are not conservatives...
Take the Patriot Act, as an example... we have a little thing in America called the 4th Amendment... among the guarantees of that brilliant passage is that American citizens are not subject to unreasonable searches and seizures, and that a warrant must be obtained prior to a search or seizure... and yet, the Patriot Act expanded the role of National Security Letters, which allow the FBI to run wire taps and conduct searches of American citizens without any type of warrant whatsoever... naturally, the ACLU has been fighting this infringement on our rights... many Americans believe that the Patriot Act has helped to keep us safe, and as such are willing to look the other way as our government strips us of our rights... but as Ben Franklin once said- "Those who would sacrifice liberty for the sake of temporary security deserve neither."
Here's the point, though... if you're a conservative, you should be appalled by the Patriot Act's infringement on our rights... and yet, the extreme partisanship of people who claim to be conservatives prevents them from honestly evaluating themselves or their party... to me, the ACLU is literally the most conservative group in the country... a conservative is supposed to fight the government tooth and nail over any federal attempt at suppressing our rights... I can't for the life of me figure out why more people don't realize that... if you look at some of our historical conservative heroes like Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln (yes, I realize that Lincoln suspended Habeas Corpus, but he did so only for citizens of the Confederacy, and the Bill of Rights legally applies only to US citizens), and Teddy Roosevelt, I think that all 3 of them would be card carrying members of the ACLU... what do you think, John, Mere, Josh, and Josh (I'm realizing that I have 4 readers, not just 1)? Does this kind of bulls**t drive anyone else crazy?
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There must be something wrong with the time stamp on your post... 8:58am on a Sunday!!! Or were you still up from the night before?
I mostly agree with your opinions that the Republican party has been taken over by what you call neo-cons. Also agree that the ACLU's objectives are to preserve the conservative rights of our country by being advocates of the bill of rights and constitution.
However, while the bill of rights and authors of our constitution had a grand big picture in mind that I agree with all that is written, do you think they had in mind that we would be attacked by terrorists that lived on our own soil or that our country would be inundated with illegal immigrants that drain billions of legal tax-payers dollars? There is such a fine line don't you think. How do we balance protecting the citizens of our country and not villifying the constitution by enabling illegal wire taps at the same time? How do we let (ACLU advocates for) illegal immigrants send their children to schools and provide them with CHIP and MEDICARe, while they are not contributing to the tax systems that pay for these agencies and services? There has to be a balance and to me the bill of rights and constitution were established to serve the citizens of our country and the ACLU advocates often for non-citizens.
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