Re: OT: moveon.org needs your help

"Rich Shipley" <rich@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:FYGdnUU4B-FyVRLenZ2dnUVZ_tqdnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> da pickle wrote:
>> "Rich Shipley"
>>
>>>You are nit picking about the phrasing with the wrong person. What is
>>>your purpose in this?
>>>
> > When one is discussing constitutional issues, Rich, "phrasing" is very
>> important. When people confuse legal issues with the person being
>> accused of a crime and then they confuse the attorney representing that
>> person with both that person and the issues being discussed, it is
>> important to do some "phrasing" to untangle the mess.
>
> You missed the point as usual in your zeal to find minor fault. The person
> you were taking to task was not even the one that used the phrase.


I don't know whether you are this pendantic on purpose or it is just a
affectation. You have to back before you got involved and before DP got
involved to obtain the original comment. I was not taking DP to task
because he did not seem to misunderstand the point from the beginning. I
may or may not disagree with DP on any issue and I have great respect for
Bob, even though we have great differences of opinion. You seem to like to
miss the point and never let go of the error. This changes a whole
subthread and makes it more fun but less in point. Fun but less
informative. When we dig through the misunderstandings, sometimes useful
information is obtained. In this particular situation, you seem to want to
misunderstand and as I said, it is either an affectation or an annoying
intention.


>> Bob seems to think that the ACLU does not pick and choose cases. He
>> seems to think that the ACLU will take all cases that might involve the
>> First Amendment regardless of the political overtones of the cases. In
>> this he is ill informed.
>
> Bob never said any such thing. Of course the ACLU can't take every case.
> It seems to me that they take the ones that they think will test the
> boundries of our rights or ones where there is encroachment.


I have already responded to Bob and if I misunderstood the implications of
his comment, I have apologized. You here state the exact thing that I
thought he was stating. (He has said that is NOT what he meant, so we are
in agreement on this point.) You seem to imply that you think that the ACLU
does not have a significant "political" involvement in the cases they choose
to defend. If that is not your point, I apologize to you too.


>> Now, for the issue that started it all ... "defending free speech" is NOT
>> a free speech issue ... it is a political and legal issue.
>
> And the person that used that phrase was DPxxxx. Of course you rarely go
> after the right wingnuts when they screw up, so you pick on a favorite
> target instead.


Bob is the one that said that "defending free speech" is a free speech
issue, not DP. I will be happy to correct any misunderstanding that I see.
The misunderstandings in this thread, and the subthreads, have grown
exponentially. Some of them grow because of just these sorts of comments
that you make above.


>> The choice to expend limited public interest money to defend a specific
>> free speech case cannot be divorced from the political and social
>> implications of that case. Anyone that wants to make anyone "saintly" in
>> the legal business also can enjoy whatever other fantasies they want to
>> entertain.
>
> I wouldn't call them saintly. I would call them useful.
>
> Rich

I agree that the ACLU is useful and often more than just useful. Many of
the cases that they take and the parties that they defend have no other
source of support. They often do great work. At one time, they were much
less political in their activities. They have become more politicized and
their work has taken on a partisan patina that makes them less "useful" than
they once were. Taking unpopular causes for noble ends deserves respect ...
taking unpopular positions to further a partisan agenda seems less noble ...
but that is just my opinion, YMMV.


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