First, the ACLU. Fact: The ACLU was founded by Socialists and then taken over by Communists. Today there are probably no card carrying Communists in the organization however the agenda is much the same. In the guise of freedom they generally act to destroy moral values and the normal social fabric of society, which is a means towards moving society towards some egalitarian and utopian ideal. Of course communism as practiced in places such as the old USSR in no way matched the ideal; nevertheless, people believed it was the ultimate vehicle to achieve that utopian goal.

Can the ACLU be right on some issues? Of course, even a broken clock is right twice a day.

But this brings up the interesting point of right and wrong. In many respects it is the side you already have chosen. Some might call this Relativeness. But I believe, and so do most people, that right and wrong on most issues stem from some higher source, whatever you chose to call it. It is when the ACLU challenges these types of issues which would in effect turn society 180 degrees that they run afoul of most people.

Returning to the original issue that started this debate I reiterate what I said before, namely that issue before us is not Imus but Free Speech. While some points were presented which are valid it is still my contention that controlling and limiting Free Speech is an issue we had all better be aware of.

Here it is the citation you requested from the Sixth Circuit website:

http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pdf/05a0477p-06.pdf

Of the more salient statements in ACLU v. Mercer Co., KY, p 13:

“The ACLU’s argument contains three fundamental flaws. . .First, the ACLU makes repeated reference to ‘the separation of church and state.’ This extra-constitutional construct has grown tiresome. The First Amendment does not demand a wall of separation between church and state.”

“But it is one thing to say that the government should not have double standards, and quite another thing to say that the private sector should not have double standards.”

My “nuanced” take on this position is that private individuals are not two people. Their attitudes carry over into the public sector and eventually become law or regulations that have the force of law. A good example is speech codes at universities, institutions that proclaim free speech as a foundation to inquiry. These little dictatorships, that get their marching orders from accrediting institutions (private entities) that have something akin to the divine right of kings, have decided that their own personal standard is what is right and good, the peoples’ will through the democratic process be damned. Their attitudes migrate out to the society at large. This was the case with Nazism, as Hayek pointed out, and is the case with our own brand of Leftism that Bork termed “authoritarian liberalism.”

I first entered this discussion when a suggestion had been made that Sharpton’s private pressue on private companies to take a private citizen off a private network threatened free speech. I wrote that there was no threat to free speech because everybody involved was acting in private capacity. Government was out of the picture.

The case you cite is very different in a number of ways. First, the officers in Tawana Brawley were attacked for alleged actions, not for speech. Secondly, the government was involved.

It was a disgraceful episode in Sharpton’s disgraceful career. You’ll get no argument from me about that. I also agree that the man should not be in Congress.

But it is one thing to say that the government should not have double standards, and quite another thing to say that the private sector should not have double standards. I agree completely with the former, and I have a more nuanced view about the latter.

I read you last post again, as well as my response to it. I never dodged the issue, I merely disagreed with you. When I quoted you, I quoted you in full. You posed a lot of rhetorical questions, and I treated most them as rhetorical by ignoring them. As for David Duke, I disagree that what he’s said in the past in not as bad as what Sharpton has said. Would it be overly “selective” to quote him as saying:

“These Jews who run things, who are producing this mental illness – teenage suicide… all these Jewish sicknesses. That’s nothing new. The Talmud’s full of things like sex with boys and girls.”

As for me repeating my point “9 more time in case those with attention disorders missed it,” that is exactly what you do here. I get it–I understand that you think Sharpton is “underhanded.” But why should it matter to the execs if they get called “racist KKK memebers?” Because it hurts their feelings? No, because it’s bad for business. Capitalizing “POLITICAL” doesn’t enhance your argument.

I still want to know upon what grounds you think Sharpton would have sued. Even Sharpton knows he had no case.

A boycott does not need to be complete to make pulling adversting from Imus worth it. It only needs to make a small dent in corporate profits.

Back to the issue of “selective reply to half-quotes,” I think you might be projecting your own problems on me. Your last two sarcastic sentences (which I quote in full) make my point:

“But I forgot, there’s nothing wrong with a good old fashioned double standard…unless it applies to black people. Everybody else should just ‘get over it.’”

I don’t know whose argument you think your lapooning, but it isn’t mine. I’ve said repeatedly (though, I admit, fewer than nine times) that I don’t think there is “nothing wrong” with double standards. I’ve made only the obvious point that there are contexts in which double standards make sense. I hate to think you have an “attention disorder…”

I loved your selective reply to half-quotes from my previous post. And thanks for reiterating your original point 9 more times in case those with attention disorders missed it. Keep dodging the issue all you want. Rev. Al’s boycotts wouldn’t have hurt Imus’ advertisers. The day you are even capable of effectively boycotting a company like P&G, that makes everything from laundry detergent to toothpaste to bath soap to barbecue lighters under literally hundreds, maybe thousands of different brands, then you wield the power to shut down the entire US economy. Rev. Al uses underhanded tactics to get what he wants to fulfill his racist agenda. Those companies and the network were probably more concerned with being accused of being racist KKK members, like 6 prominent community members were 20 years ago, and like 3 wealthy college athletes were a mere year ago, than with having a handful of wackjob activists who follow Sharpton boycotting their company. Those companies were concerned about the POLITICAL power that Sharpton wields, despite the fact that he’s a racist white-hating lunatic, because of the legitimacy given to him by the wackjob leftist media outlets who have different standards of “racist” for Al Sharpton and Michael Richards. But I forgot, there’s nothing wrong with a good old fashioned double standard… unless it applies to black people. Everybody else should just “get over it”.

The threat posed by Al Sharpton, et al, is illustrated by his involvement it the Tawana Brawley case, and explained by Prof. James Q. Wilson in his book, Moral Judgement, p. 109-110:

“When Tawana Brawley, a young black woman in New York City, invented the story that she had been raped by white men, her cause was loudly championed by people [like Al Sharpton, http://www.slate.com/id/2087557 who acted as if the truth or falsity of her story was irrelevant. And after it was shown to be false, her role in the story of black oppression was defended by some who wrote that even if she did fake the crime, her ‘condition’ was the expression of ‘some’ crime against her that entitled her to be the object of our grieving. Paul Butler has carried this way of thinking to its logical conclusion. Writing in the Yale Law Journal, he urged African-American jurors to free guilty African-American defendants of nonviolent drug crimes . . . In a penetrating critique of this mode of thought, Jeffrey Rosen shows what should be obvious: Making the legal process the wholly subjective expression of group-determined minds ends the possibility of people from different groups agreeing about anything and converts the objectivity of the law into an expression of group beliefs. And that means the end of the rule of law. (Emphasis added)

That’s why there should be only one standard, and people like Al Sharpton should not be seated in Congress.

I didn’t mean to imply that I thought you were unaware of how blacks were treated. I was merely pointing out that society was not uniformly more civil in those days. Thank you for clearing me up about Southern hospitality in those days–my only experience is with the New South.

“However, I still stand by my comment that increasing sensitivity increases the false alarm rate, and the Imus flap was a false alarm because of the over-reaction and because no one can show that white attitudes about blacks changed for the better because of it.”

I agree completely, and I apologize if I conveyed otherwise. I worry, though, that it’s not worth getting too exercised about because there is simply nothing to be done about individuals who sit in front of their televisions waiting to be offended so they can raise hell. They will continue to sit in front of their televisions, they will continue to get offended, and they will continue to threaten boycotts. Advertisers cannot be expected to take a principled stance against the interest of their shareholders, and neither can broadcast networks. (Though, I admit, it would be greatly satisfying to see one of them tell Rev. Sharpton to “get a life.”)

Most intelligent people don’t care what Al Sharpton thinks about anything. Unfortunately, even idiots can exercise market power through withholding their dollars. We can complain about their idiocy, but it won’t change anything. The main difference between you and me seems to be my pessimsm.

We could eliminate the double standard by threatening massive boycotts of our own, but most of us would prefer, as you put it, “to get a life.”

Are you kidding me? As a supervisor, I pondered why a professional appearance was so important for an employee; after all, why should a person be judged by something superficial? Einstein was a genius and had a slovenly appearance. That’s when I came to the conclusion that a slovenly appearance conveyed a message to a customer that the employee didn’t care about the customer and his needs because he didn’t care what the customer thought of him.

The same applies here, although not about appearance. If Imus cared what blacks, and most whites, thought of him, he wouldn’t have made such an uncharitable remark about them. Of course, if you’re in the business of making uncharitable remarks, you wouldn’t have a job if you were charitable. Conclusion: The Imuses of the world will eventually say something offensive to everyone; and if some liberals are hypersensitive, they should do what liberals tell Catholics to do: don’t watch them. As Dr. Jackson says in his companion essay, Imus doesn’t pass the “Is this guy an ‘a**hole’?” test.

“…you can hardly argue that white Southern hospitality was readily and cheerily extended to blacks.”

I would be the last to make that claim. As a Yankee who lived in the South for a while (Biloxi, MS) during the height of the civil rights movement, I can tell you that Southern hospitality extends only to fellow Southerners for the most part. I am also quite aware of how blacks were treated.

However, I still stand by my comment that increasing sensitivity increases the false alarm rate, and the Imus flap was a false alarm because of the over-reaction and because no one can show that white attitudes about blacks changed for the better because of it. If anything, they are worse.

ACLU Statement on Defending Free Speech of Unpopular Organizations (8/31/2000)
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NEW YORK–In the United States Supreme Court over the past few years, the American Civil Liberties Union has taken the side of a fundamentalist Christian church, a Santerian church, and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness. In celebrated cases, the ACLU has stood up for everyone from Oliver North to the National Socialist Party. In spite of all that, the ACLU has never advocated Christianity, ritual animal sacrifice, trading arms for hostages or genocide. In representing NAMBLA today, our Massachusetts affiliate does not advocate sexual relationships between adults and children.
What the ACLU does advocate is robust freedom of speech for everyone. The lawsuit involved here, were it to succeed, would strike at the heart of freedom of speech. The case is based on a shocking murder. But the lawsuit says the crime is the responsibility not of those who committed the murder, but of someone who posted vile material on the Internet. The principle is as simple as it is central to true freedom of speech: those who do wrong are responsible for what they do; those who speak about it are not.
It is easy to defend freedom of speech when the message is something many people find at least reasonable. But the defense of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive. That was true when the Nazis marched in Skokie. It remains true today.

First, (and again, not having read the court record) it would seem from the above that the lawsuit in this case is one not brought by the ACLU, but by someone who wished to blame the person who posted the web material for a crime committed by another. (I guess “demanding” lawsuits can be filed by all kinds of people, eh?)

Now, is this an important issue? Could a resolution, one way or the other, have wider implications about a “robust freedom of speech for everyone?” (Robust freedom of speech being part of the ACLU “agenda”) Can honorable persons be concerned about the possibility that holding someone’s speech criminally responsible for another person’s act could have a chilling effect on speech generally? Could it make people afraid of being charged, by what they write or say, as an accomplice to a madman? Should they be so charged? (I don’t know about anybody else, but I am sure no one could “teach” ME to commit murder, no matter how well presented. How about you? Will “The Devil made me do” now become a legitimate defense?)

The other issue about state supported religion seems to me as plain as the nose on my face (and believe me, my nose is pretty evident). The principle of separation is well established in law. And just because the ACLU doesn’t win every case doesn’t mean that it isn’t defending an issue important to everyone’s freedom. (Check those countries where religion rules or the stated “agendas” of our own religious right) And as some persons of a certain political “agenda” wish to point out, some judges are not always right, I mean correct. (Look at the fool judge down in Alabama with his Ten Commandments). And as you say, the court did not rule that the state could establish or support religion, but that in this case, under these circumstances, a “reasonable” person would not regard this government action as “establishing” religion. “Reasonable” can be somewhat subjective.

And (for WovenBear) it is certainly not “unreasonable” for someone to regard any gesture or reference by the people’s government to the supernatural, or for the government to allow any private group to use public property or official channels to espouse or promote belief in the supernatural, as confirmation or validation that such mythological beings actually exist, and thus “establishing” the “fact” in the minds of the immature, the uneducated and the retarded. (“No offense intended,” Don Imus)

As to the other WovenBear’s points, (which seem a bit hysterical) one has to be more specific about “illegal immigration” issues. Which ones? Are we talking about saving people’s lives, affording due process, what? Yes, I would expect that the ACLU’s “agenda” would include wanting our country to be humane and just. How horrible. It just “tear(s) apart the fabric of society.”
Pharmacists are not totally private. Do you want prescriptions filled without a prescription by someone not licensed by the state to do so? Druggists are authorized and regulated by the people’s government. They have to follow the rules. And one of the rules is that people have a right to healthcare. If some spirit in the sky, or voice in his head, tells the druggist he can’t give a person what he/she has a legal right to, then the druggist should bow out of that profession and find something else to do.