Upon reading the ACLU-SD’s planned legislative agenda for this next year includes the decriminalization of drugs, a friend offered this column for publication. It’s a great history on “what happened” to the ACLU that shifted it on such a partisan basis – the editor.
Illicit Union:
Why I Quit the ACLU
Fernson brews good beer, most agree. Nevertheless, I won’t buy its “People Power” ale because 10 percent of sales fund the ACLU, an organization I quit in disgust.
It was once a principled group. My father hails from Skokie, Illinois. In 1978, liberal ACLU lawyer David Goldberger defended the constitutional right of his worst enemies, neo-Nazis, to parade through Skokie. Goldberger’s powerful essay, “Why I am Defending My Enemies,” asserts that citizens’ right to peacefully assemble cannot be enforced selectively. Per The New Yorker, that era’s ACLU was: “fastidiously nonpartisan, so prudish about an alliance with political power that its leadership gave service awards only to private citizens, never like-minded legislators, for fear that doing so might give the wrong impression.”
In 1992, an idealistic student joined that union. For eight years, with my support and eventually my participation, ACLU lawyers jousted against the Clinton Administration, opposing Janet Reno’s attempts to curtail American liberties.
After voters elected George W. Bush our 43th President, institutional divisions began to show. The vituperative criticism and harsh rhetoric unleashed against Bush surpassed all antecedents. In the wake of 9/11, as our wounded nation grieved, ACLU spokesmen excoriated the President’s efforts to combat terrorism via no fly lists, enhanced interrogation, and passenger profiling. I oppose torture because I’m unconvinced it yields actionable intelligence. Therefore, I concurred in some ACLU criticisms if not in their tone. But vanishingly few of my conservative compatriots agreed. Many, protesting union attacks on the FBI and DHS, resigned in droves. Steadfast in hope, I remained and, later that year, received an ACLU award.
But rather than provide a much-needed corrective, the conservative exodus emboldened anti-Bush zealots. The union, now purged of Republican voices, embraced partisan politics. Its leadership contributed money to Democrats – and only Democrats – in the 2002 midterms. But not my money, for that fall departed we, the last lingering coterie of liberty-loving conservatives, many to join F.I.R.E. (the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education).
By 2005, the ACLU had become a fully-fledged arm of the Democratic National Committee and, by 2010, it had metamorphosed into a Bizzaro-world doppelganger of its former self. No longer would the union defend unpleasant speech. Instead, it joined the rush to suppress and censor public expression deemed “hurtful” or “offensive.” When America elected President Trump, the ACLU shed any pretense of impartiality, joined ranks with the impeachment mob, propagated the Russia collusion hoax, and spent more than $1,000,000 opposing Justice Kavanaugh’s confirmation.
Legal luminary and Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz called out peers at the organization he’d “long admired” saying, “Their [conduct] is appalling. When I served on the National and Massachusetts ACLU Boards, members included conservative Republicans, religious ministers, schoolteachers, labor leaders, and ordinary folks who cared deeply about civil liberties. Discussions were never partisan. They focused on the Bill of Rights. There were disagreements, but no one questioned whether taking a position would help Democrats or Republicans, liberals or conservatives, Jews, Catholics, or any other identifiable group. We cared about applying the Constitution fairly to everyone, without regard to political consequences. Those days are gone.”
Once, the ACLU cherished fundamental liberties. Today, it serves wealthy elites. Once, the union was cash poor but principle-rich. Today, those values are reversed. The ACLU is obscenely affluent – net assets surpass $500 million. Such wealth does not flow from working class citizens passionate about free speech, due process, and the Constitution; much of it comes from men like George Soros, filtered through left-wing political groups. To its everlasting disgrace, the ACLU has exchanged honor for avarice. Predictably, a correlation grew between the union’s purse and its priorities. When asked why the ACLU fought Kavanaugh, Political Director (and former Democratic Party operative) Faiz Shakir admitted, “Certain people have funded us, and they expect a return.”
The union now spends millions on TV and Internet ads indistinguishable from those of MoveOn, the DNC, and other explicitly partisan groups. As Executive Director Anthony Romero told The New Yorker, “It used to be that, when I had an issue I really cared about, I could spend $50,000.” In 2018, the ACLU spent more than $25 million, every cent backing Democrats. God alone knows how much it will spend against Trump in 2020. Has the ACLU’s core mission changed? Has it revised its charter to become a left wing super PAC? Not on paper. Shamelessly, the union still calls itself “non-partisan.”
The world knows Professor Dershowitz is no conservative, but on one topic our views coincide: liberty has been displaced as the union’s wellspring. ACLU mega donors couldn’t care less about the Constitution or due process. They want more Democrats in Congress, fewer conservatives on the Supreme Court, and (in 2020) a radical leftist president. Obediently, the ACLU leaps to fetch whatever its paymasters demand.
Thus, instead of marshalling resources to defend free expression, the union pushes South Dakota to legalize methamphetamine. As so many devastated families know, meth addiction is not freedom but slavery. A 2017-2018 survey of emergency room admissions ranked methamphetamine and fentanyl the most dangerous illegal drugs, especially for women. Physical and psychological dependence on these chemicals chains addicts to despair. Having subverted their users’ wills, the drugs take over. Young men and women destroy their health and disorder their minds, surrendering all that is beautiful, relinquishing all that is sacred, in reckless pursuit of the next dose: another toxic fix. When helplessly-addicted adolescent ingest such poison, Liberty weeps.
In the union’s halcyon days, it wouldn’t facilitate hard drug addiction, nor would it stand silent as armed government agents raided a lawyer’s office to seize confidential files. The old union, seeing innocent college kids persecuted by star chambers and kangaroo courts, would’ve cried “havoc!” and let slip the dogs of war. My ACLU would uphold the presumption of innocence always and everywhere, not forsake it whenever the accused happens to be conservative or Christian. Instead, this corrupt union grows fat, feasting as Liberty bleeds.
In the name of America which is outraged, in the name of citizens who are fettered, in the name of the Constitution and which is disregarded and trampled upon, I DENOUCE this illicit union, with all the emphasis at my command. Inalienable human rights transcend ideological factions, transcend political parties, transcend identity groups. A civil libertarian worthy of the name defends constitutional rights for all not just because principle demands it, but because that’s the way – the one true way – American freedom may endure.
The hypocrisy continues. Republicans still attempt to push overreaching punitive legislation against drugs despite having no idea the struggle that comes with drug addiction and despite the fact they never have done drugs, not even marijuana. While at the same time chastising Democrats for not having any guns or firing them, let alone understanding how they operate, and still wanting to pass gun legislation. How about you both chill out and let me maintain domain over my own person and start recognizing drug addiction for the ailment that it is rather than a victimless felony. Common sense has gone out the window with both parties. THE WAR ON DRUGS WAS A FAILURE. PROHIBITION WAS A FAILURE. Aren’t Conservatives supposed to learn from history rather than repeat it? Where’d the real conservatives go???
victimless felony? That claim is a problem right there. The negative consequences of drug use including marijuana rarely stays in a bubble. It negatively affects others around you often times.
Drug addiction is (except often times in opioid addiction due to over-prescribing and in other rare cases) a self-induced ailment. I can avoid it by not ever taking illegal drugs. There is so much information out there about the dangers of addiction so why aren’t people getting the message?
With the expanse of government social programs, we have removed the moral, social, and financial consequences of bad decisions (generally called the “Moral Hazard”) thus the unholy alliance between liberals who like to use government power to serve their ends and conservatives who like to use government power to serve their ends.
I’m good with legalizing drugs if a drug user (current or in the past) who fries their brains or is otherwise un-employable waives all righst to welfare (except access to homeless shelters). However, if society gets stuck with paying for the consequences of bad decisions, society is entitled to criminalize or otherwise restrict/prohibit bad decisions.
You dopers want to have it both ways.
I say the same thing about motorcycle riders and helmets or cars and seatbelts. They should not be required but you should not receive any public aid if you are disabled and need 24 hour care. Can’t work? Too bad. Can’t get care and your family is going broke? Tough.
Considering the biggest issue in this country is obesity, how about we hold them accountable as well? How about gun owners since they have a higher probability of getting shot? You can find something that deals with risk with about every activity humans do, so who gets to decide?
One of the saddest (and a long-term threat to our country) is there are decreasing numbers of both Republican and Democrat civil libertarians, people who embrace difference and individual liberty.
Both parties are dominated by people who desire to use the power of the State to make the country in their image by suppressing the other side.
I found zero information (outside of some paranoid and delusional bloggers) that the ACLU is pro-meth-legalization. They are against some proposed laws because of how these proposed laws could potentially violate the constitutional rights of innocent citizens. That is a huge difference, but I guess if your goal is to scare the ignorant, then this guest column might just do the trick.
It’s the same logic they use to tear Dusty down. He didn’t support Trump’s executive order so he must be against the wall. It wasn’t the idea they are against, it’s how it is being done.
The aclu says drug addiction is a “public health issue, not a criminal justice issue.” the aclu urges “treatment instead of punishment.” reading its publication, it seems the aclu supports general decriminalization (of hard drugs and marijuana), but if you’ll show me where the aclu insists meth possession should remain a felony, i’ll be greatly relieved. meth IS poison
Correct. SD’s ACLU recommends: “decriminalizing personal drug use and possession.” That’s a blanket (i.e. general) recommendation, not limited to marijuana, hallucinogens, speed, cocaine, mdma, or whatever. Bad idea for South Dakota.
“. . . . a friend offered this column for publication.” How about attribution for the author, so your readers can best judge the accuracy, credibility and the extent to which it is a “great history on what happened to the ACLU…”?