ACLU

I have an honest question. It may sound biased, but it really isn't, I'd honestly like to know:

At what point did the ACLU become the bad guys? I don't know all that much about what they do, except for the occasional mention when it comes to legal battles, and my general impression has been that they are what their name would imply: A group that helps protect the civil liberties of people who cannot protect their own.

They strike me as a group which will wade into a fray when unpopular action or speech is incorrectly quashed by governmental agencies.

So, where am I wrong? Or if I'm not, how is protecting those who don't have the majority behind them a bad thing?

Sure, a lot of what they do is disagreeable, that would be the very nature of such a group. Having to step in to defend the KKK's right to march, when most of us would probably prefer they (the KKK) didn't exist. But you know what? In our society, the KKK has the Constitutional right to the same treatment any other group gets, so long as they assemble peacefully and do not incite riots nor try to convince people to break the law.

But, as I said, I haven't followed their history very closely, and perhaps there's a reason why so many people say the words "ACLU" in much the same tone as one might say "Bill Clinton" or "George W. Bush" depending on which side of the political aisle you fall.

(This was brought up by a frothing rant on an uber-conservative blog I happened upon, where an unsubstantiated report on Drudge's site about ACLU shredding of documents was used as the springboard to go off on yet another anti-ACLU rant. I have tried to find more information about the supposed shredding and thus far have been unable to find it (I couldn't get to Drudge's site for some reason, I've been having internet connectivity bugaboos all day). I will certainly post more on it if I find out anything more.)

Copyright (c) June 4, 2005 by Liam Johnson. http://www.liamjohnson.net