I see that at least one state chapter of the ACLU is breaking with the national organization on its long-standing opposition to the 2nd Amendment. Nice to see. I hope other chapters follow suit.
There was a time when I was, quite literally, a card-carrying member of both the ACLU and the NRA. Eventually I gave up completely on the ACLU, as over time it became clearer and clearer that they were not truly concerned with civil liberties, but rather a very constrained, far left version of “civil liberties” that was often anti-liberty and anti-choice. I understand that some issues are just going to be contentious amongst civil libertarians, but they had swung much too far away from their commendable core mission. I hope this is a sign that the group may reform itself to be more concerned with real civil freedoms, with gun rights being only one of many things they start to change their stance on. That might make them an organization I can support again.
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The ACLU has never had a commendable core mission, just a dishonest name to falsely imply one. In their early years, Roger Baldwin made no secret of the fact that civil liberties was a means toward a desired progressive end, not an end in itself. For a brief period of sanity in the 1950s they kicked out all the known Marxist-Leninists, only to apologize to them later and reinstate them in good standing. When and under what circumstances can I trust a Marxist-Leninist to defend my civil liberties?
Xrlq’s last blog post..Six Views on the Second Amendment
The ACLU drives me mad. Sometimes I think that one day I’ll go back to law school, get a degree on Constitutional Law and dedicate the rest of my life to in a pro-bono fashion, take the ACLU to task on most of its cases.
I’m not sure that’s a fair portrayal of Baldwin or the early ACLU. While I would agree–100%–that Marxism is incompatible with American Constitutional liberties or our ideals of freedom, I think that is often not obvious on its surface. I tend to view this a lot like I view people who were pro-Hitler or pro-Germany before World War II broke out, like Charles Lindbergh. It’s easy to get fooled, especially if you’re an idealist.
Marxism was wildly popular in the United States at one time, and many decent people honestly believed in it and even managed to convince themselves that it was a philosophy compatible with the American Constitution, especially its Bill of Rights. It wasn’t. Baldwin himself eventually came to see this, which led him to strongly denounce Communism and to personally lead the purge of Communists from his organization.
Without getting too much deeper into it, let’s just say I think their core mission of protecting individual liberties and against state encroachment on same was laudable from the beginning. My discomfort with the organization came from what was increasingly obvious to me while I was a member: their agenda was not really civil liberties. I’m not sure I’d buy the idea that that was always true, though.
It was true from the beginning. The only reason it wasn’t “always” true is because of the brief period of sanity in which they temporarily expelled their Marxists. From the horse’s mouth:
Xrlq’s last blog post..Tony Snow, 1955-2008
I’m really not sure how any of that refutes my point. Endorsing violence in other countries as necessary is not the same thing as endorsing it here, nor does wanting to empower the working class equate to communism. As I already noted, Baldwin finally smartened up on what Communism really was (and still is, where it still exists) and did something about it, not unlike the Fascist sympathizers of his same era (who were also big on the working class, by the way) who eventually did the same (like Lindbergh).
Volokh has the right take on it I’d say; I’d just add that shallow Marxist apologism was very trendy amongst intellectuals at and progressives at one time, and you still find pockets of it here and there, but as Volokh says, it’s not right to paint Baldwin’s entire career or his entire organization this way.
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