ACLU
stcynic | August 29, 2006Not that this will surprise anyone, but even when he's right, he can't seem to avoid misrepresenting what the ACLU says or does. In this post at STACLU, he cites a column by Nat Hentoff (one of my absolute favorite writers) where Hentoff takes the ACLU to task for inconsistency in a pair of cases, the Frenchtown case (where a student chose a religious song for a school talent show and was told she couldn't by the school) and the McCombs case (where a student chose to speak about her religious faith in a commencement speech and was told she couldn't by the school, but did so anyway). The ACLU…
stcynic | August 28, 2006Of all the contributors at STACLU, I don't think I've ever fisked Bosun before, but this post is positively begging for it. He credulously repeats the standard religious right rhetoric about this being a Christian nation and, absurdly, cites the Mayflower Compact as evidence. He begins:
This was a nation founded on Christian principles.
Congratulations, you're the 50 millionth person to make that claim. Like the others, however, I imagine you'll be just as incapable of defending it. This nation was founded by and is based entirely upon the Constitution. If it was really founded on "Christian…
stcynic | August 18, 2006Before I ever read the STACLU response to yesterday's ruling by Judge Taylor, I could easily predict two things:
1. They would declare her an evil, activist, terrorist-loving liberal demon.
2. They would either misunderstand or misrepresent the ruling.
Just call me Nostradamus. Here's John Bambenek's absurd response, complete with all of those things. Here's the misrepresentation or misunderstanding (I don't know which is the case. He either has no ability to comprehend the ruling, or he's willfully distorting what it said):
The ACLU has convinced a federal judge that monitoring overseas…
stcynic | August 15, 2006Good ol' Kender is up in arms about the ACLU protesting the city of Orlando's proposed ban on feeding the homeless in parks in Orlando, Florida. He says the ACLU is supporting the "terrorization" of Orlando residents (gotta love the ridiculously inflated and emotion laden rhetoric there) and you'll love the reasoning:
The Orlando City Council recently passed an ordinance that prohibits the feeding of large groups of people in city parks without a permit, and the ACLU is about to file a lawsuit over it.
My short take on this is that many chronically homeless people are unbalanced and may pose…
stcynic | August 14, 2006Good ol' Gribbit repeats this one ridiculous argument that is par for the course among the STACLU crowd: the notion that the ACLU intentionally files cases in "ACLU friendly districts":
They often times take "establishment clause" cases in districts where activist federal court judges are more likely to favor their positions...
But even if the town doesn't and it does go to trial, because the case was taken in an ACLU friendly district, the town hasn't a chance to survive the argument.
It's just such an idiotic argument and it shows Gribbit's rank ignorance of the judicial process. Judges are…
stcynic | August 13, 2006The Worldnutdaily, for some strange reason, has made Pat Boone - yes, that Pat Boone - a weekly columnist; I guess Perry Como was busy. Most of his columns are just plain embarrassing, of course, but this one about the ACLU was even worse than usual. Let's see if we can count how many lies, falsehoods and exaggerations he can pack into a single article. He starts by claiming that they favor "Eradication of any reference to the Ten Commandments or the Bible from public buildings or hillsides or even cemeteries." This is false. They have no objection to such things in cemetaries, as long as the…
stcynic | August 12, 2006In the wake of a terrorist cell being taken down in England, the STACLU are frantically pushing their anti-ACLU spin on the situation. In particular, they're claiming that the ACLU would have prevented our government from acting so effectively because they're intentionally trying to make us less safe. Why anyone would think that Americans are intentionally trying to make Americans - which would include them less safe is beyond my ability to understand, but that's the kind of idiotic rhetoric the clueless throw around.
In this post by Glib Fortuna (doesn't that sound like the name of a drag…
stcynic | August 4, 2006I'm going to reprint here the email I just sent to Jay Stephenson. He sent me an email inviting me on his radio show, which I declined, but I sent him a long reply and I think it hits on some important points on our overall disagreement. Jay is clearly the most reasonable person at StoptheACLU, and his willingness to engage arguments without vitriol has earned my respect. So I offered these thoughts to him in all sincerity. Here's the letter:
I don't really have any interest in coming on the show. That's not because it makes me uncomfortable or because I think it would be unfair, I just don't…
stcynic | August 4, 2006Perhaps I should say lack of depth, since, like most political partisans, they rarely look beyond the surface level of immediate reaction to really think about an issue. This post is a textbook example, where John Bambenek declares a simple double standard:
Compare and contrast these two cases:
The first, a scandal-ridden New Jersey Senator who was running for reelection abruptly resigns and drops out of the race 35 days before the election. Litigation ensues and the court decides that it should override the law under the concerns to ensure a "full and fair ballot choice" for the voters.
The…
stcynic | August 3, 2006Another STACLU contributor, John Bambenek, has jumped into the dispute over HR 2679 and the fee shifting provisions in establishment clause cases. Naturally, he's for ending such fee shifting, but I don't think his argument is at all consistent. Here's his argument:
However, the money schools have is not their own. The money sitting in government accounts is not their own. They are merely stewards of assets they have been given to perform tasks they have been assigned. Their masters are the citizens who fund those organizations and who elect their leaders.
There is something profoundly wrong…
stcynic | August 3, 2006STACLU has a post up accusing Justice Ginsburg of having a conflict of interest for ruling in a case involving the ACLU because she used to work as an attorney for them. Quoting another blogger, they ask the following question:
Is it proper that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg - a former attorney for the ACLU - to have actually ruled on a ACLU case before her? Isn't it a standard practice to recuse oneself when there is a conflict of interest - such as in the case of CJ John Roberts in the Haman (sic) case?
And then Jay goes on, as usual, to blather on about hypocrisy where none…
stcynic | August 2, 2006Jay from Stop the ACLU posted one of his "blogbursts" about HR 2679, which is going to be the subject of hearings in the Senate (designated SB 3696), yesterday and his post linked to one of mine in an attempt to refute it. That post was picked up by many other blogs, all of whom appear to have posted it without any consideration of whether it actually made any sense or not. The problem is that the argument he cited to refute mine didn't even touch on my argument at all. Here's the part where he cites me:
Despite all of this some people are trying to claim, like the ACLU, that this law would…
stcynic | August 2, 2006Kansas City, KS, has dropped charges they filed against street preacher Michael Wheeler for preaching on a public sidewalk in May. He was represented by the Alliance Defense Fund, and rightly so. They will undoubtedly be applauded by the anti-ACLU crowd, as I think they should be, for defending religious freedom. Yet the ACLU has defended street preachers all over the nation in similar cases. Here are links to just a few:
IndianaNevadaNew MexicoWashington
The ACLU does the exact same thing the ADF does, yet Alan Sears of the ADF still accuses the ACLU of waging "a legal jihad against public…
stcynic | August 2, 2006I was contacted a couple days ago by the folks who run the acluprocon.org webpage. It's an interesting page, devoted to presenting both sides of the debate over various issues and the ACLU position on those issues. They came across my writings on the subject and added my biography and some links to various essays I've written on the subject. It's actually part of a larger project called ProCon.org, which defines its goal as "Promoting informed citizenship by presenting controversial issues in a simple, nonpartisan pro-con format." A worthy goal, I'd say.
stcynic | July 28, 2006Gribbit is proving to be the political equivalent of Old Faithful - every 8 minutes or so, you can be assured that he's going to spew some utter nonsense into the air. His latest concerns HR 2679, the bill that would eliminate legal fee reimbursement for establishment clause cases. In it, he demonstrates all of the irrationality and hypocrisy we've come to expect from him:
PERA would eliminate the ability for judges to award attorney's fees compensation to groups like the ACLU in Establishment Clause cases only. These fees where originally authorized by CONGRESS so that good attorneys wouldn'…
stcynic | July 27, 2006It seems that DaveScot isn't the only one credulous enough to fall for the "ACLU stops soldiers from praying" hoax. The STACLU Montana chapter did too. Skepticism: the gift that keeps on giving.
stcynic | July 19, 2006And finding more absurdity underneath. Oak Leaf, one of the new STACLU contributors, has a post about a Senate committee that heard testimony from JAG corps officers about how to proceed after the Hamdan decision, based upon this article in the New York Times. He begins by invoking the TV show JAG, as though these military officers in the real JAG corps were just frivolous and shallow TV stars, not real military people (remember, you gotta support the troops - unless they disagree with you on something). By the way, these were not junior grade officers, these were the top lawyers from all…
stcynic | July 16, 2006Or three, perhaps, since I already wrote one lengthy reply in the comments of the first post. How he's back with a second comment, which is little improved from the first one.
Yes, Ed, I understand that your blog enjoys more traffic, but if you'd like to challenge me in the future, at least notify me with a link in my comments section. Otherwise, all you're doing is whispering behind someone's back in a room full of your friends and pretending you've somehow won the debate.
The trackback gets sent, and Jay obviously reads this page when it happens. You somehow managed to find your way back…
stcynic | July 14, 2006One of the relatively new commenters at STACLU calls himself Glib Fortuna. Like all of the STACLU contributors, he specializes in pointing out the splinter in the eyes of others while ignoring the log in his own, all while blissfully unaware of the contradiction. A textbook example:
It's no surprise that the ACLU has no respect for the democratic process and continues their attempt to undo popularly-enacted legislation and constitutional amendments. What is surprising is the stinging string of rebukes the ACLU and its extremist allies have suffered in the past week on the subject of marriage…
stcynic | July 11, 2006The ACLU committee that proposed rules against board members speaking out against the organization's positions has been withdrawn from consideration and will now go away. This is very good news. Bravo, ACLU.