Former ACLU Director Ira Glasser believes the modern left is anti-free-speech, and that pisses him off

[Dan Druff]

Ira Glasser is no Republican. He's a lifelong Jewish leftist, who was once the director of the ACLU.

He feels the modern left has lost its way, and has abandoned its long-running staunch defense of free speech. In fact, Glasser believes the ACLU itself has also abandoned its core principles, and now often takes the other side in free speech matters -- something unthinkable just 15 years ago.

(For an example, see the infamous Abigail Shrier situation, where an ACLU deputy director tweeted that he would back the banning of Shrier's book. Shrier's book was a well-researched, respectful, non-bigoted discussion of the dangers of rubber-stamping teenage gender transitions.)



Glasser says that the modern ACLU believes free speech to be incompatible with leftist goals. Therefore it wants to abandon free speech in favor of "banning hate speech" and "censoring misinformation". However, while Glasser is no fan of misinformation or hate speech, he has stated all of his life that endeavors to censor speech always result in the eventual suppression of truth and the censoring of the marginalized.

Glasser has not been shy about very vocally and vehemently criticizing what he regards as a retreat by the modern-day ACLU from the organization’s long-standing mission. He is particularly scathing about how the politicized money that has poured in has caused the group to pursue standard-issue liberal policy goals at the expense of the Constitutional rights it once uniquely and fearlessly defended. But he also recognizes that many of the ACLU lawyers, and its leadership, still have a commitment to those core values, and often are forced to battle their own staff in order to fulfill the group’s mission: a perverse conflict that is plaguing numerous political, journalistic and academic institutions.

I respect Ira Glasser's commitment to free speech -- something I have spent my entire life speaking strongly in favor of, even when it wasn't a popular position to take as a Republican 30 years ago.

The ACLU is now an abomination, and a shell of its former self.

Here's an October article about Glasser (with a link to a video interview with him), and how disgusted he is with his former organization: https://theintercept.com/2020/10/20/...er-speaks-out/

But yeah... there's no cancel culture, and no assault on free speech by the left. Just right-wing conspiracy theories coming out of Parler. Glasser must be in on it!!

[JohnCommode]

It happened many years ago that the ACLU defended Nazis for the sake of personal freedom. Today, the ACLU has devolved into an organization that promotes extreme leftist views and has neglected the cause of individual liberty.

Merry Christmas! Happy Chanukah! Happy Kwanzaa!

[Rick Sanchez]

How many liberals are really anti-free-speech? I can think of a few notable examples like Berkley students trying to block conservative speakers, but by and large I don't think this is something Democrats champion. A lot of the hand-wringing about "censorship" I see from conservatives is them being babies about having their ideas criticized.

That ACLU director proposing book burning is obviously atrocious, but does she speak for the ACLU? Not a rhetorical question, as I genuinely don't know, but a quick look at their website suggests that their views on this are still very much aligned with yours Druff. https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship

[Texter]

How many liberals are really anti-free-speech? I can think of a few notable examples like Berkley students trying to block conservative speakers, but by and large I don't think this is something Democrats champion. A lot of the hand-wringing about "censorship" I see from conservatives is them being babies about having their ideas criticized.

That ACLU director proposing book burning is obviously atrocious, but does she speak for the ACLU? Not a rhetorical question, as I genuinely don't know, but a quick look at their website suggests that their views on this are still very much aligned with yours Druff. https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship

It’s actually a very small subset, but pussies will fail to call them out for fear of retribution....so it looks like a lot more are pro censorship.

Look at the backlash from that Harpers magazine petition...pure silliness.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...s-free-speech/

[Rick Sanchez]

It’s actually a very small subset, but pussies will fail to call them out for fear of retribution....so it looks like a lot more are pro censorship.

Both sides could do with a lot more of denouncing their fringe elements. Unfortunately I see way more of this from liberals than conservatives. Even Obama has been critical of woke SJW culture.

Like, what is the right's equivalent of Bill Maher? The very occasional rebuke from Tucker Carlson? Ben Shapiro used to do a tiny bit of that, but he seems a lot more hacky these days.

Ironically I think sensible conservatives are disincentivized from doing this because they get ostracized as RINOs, so now there is a chilling effect.

[sonatine]

Like, what is the right's equivalent of Bill Maher?

i want to say lincoln project but i also strongly suspect they are going to go full wet-gremlin about 10 minutes after biden is sworn in and burn all that good will to the ground.

[Dan Druff]

How many liberals are really anti-free-speech? I can think of a few notable examples like Berkley students trying to block conservative speakers, but by and large I don't think this is something Democrats champion. A lot of the hand-wringing about "censorship" I see from conservatives is them being babies about having their ideas criticized.

That ACLU director proposing book burning is obviously atrocious, but does she speak for the ACLU? Not a rhetorical question, as I genuinely don't know, but a quick look at their website suggests that their views on this are still very much aligned with yours Druff. https://www.aclu.org/other/what-censorship

Depends what you mean by "liberals". If you're talking about old-school liberals like Glasser, Bill Maher, or Noam Chomsky, not many support speech suppression.

If you're talking about the new woke left and Hollywood, a lot support speech suppression. This is the reason for people like Glasser to raise issue with what he's seeing, and for people like Chomsky to write a scathing editorial about leftist cancel culture (and get 150 prominent liberals to sign it).

If these were nebulous concepts being exaggerated on Fox News or OANN, you wouldn't have prominent old school liberals getting angry enough to speak out about it. This is a very real problem. Look at what happens on college campuses when any conservative tries to set up a speaking engagement there.

It has also infested corporate culture, where your job is legitimately at risk in many places if you dare admit to holding conservative views. This is true even if you don't directly express them at work.

Both sides could do with a lot more of denouncing their fringe elements. Unfortunately I see way more of this from liberals than conservatives. Even Obama has been critical of woke SJW culture.

Like, what is the right's equivalent of Bill Maher? The very occasional rebuke from Tucker Carlson? Ben Shapiro used to do a tiny bit of that, but he seems a lot more hacky these days.

Ironically I think sensible conservatives are disincentivized from doing this because they get ostracized as RINOs, so now there is a chilling effect.

Listen carefully to what Obama is saying. He's not critical of the woke ideas themselves. He's criticizing tactics -- basically telling them to tone down the extreme public rhetoric, feign more centrism, and work behind the scenes to quietly get their leftist goals accomplished. Unlike the liberals I mentioned earlier who legitimately disagree with speech suppression and cancel culture, Obama is saying, "Look, I actually agree with you, but.... shhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

Look at Twitter with the NY Post Hunter Biden thing. Let's put aside the outrageous action of censorship which took place there, and focus on the reaction. Not only were there relatively few liberals calling it out as wrong, but even on PFA, we had a lot of people defending Twitter's actions. The general consensus among PFA leftist was, "The right is putting out so much fake news, and Trump followers are so gullible, we need to censor stories we deem false for their own good."

Many leftists supporting censorship aren't doing it with evil intent. Many simply believe it's necessary in today's society -- both to protect marginalized groups, and to prevent misinformation from being weaponized against the truth. Both of these sound like great, noble ideas on the surface, but unfortunately break down upon scrutiny, as the definitions of "hate speech" and "misinformation" are very subjective, and can easily lead to abuse. Furthermore, the use of obviously biased "fact checking" services to classify news as true or false, is also very dangerous. None of these fact checkers will provide any proof that they're neutral, and there are very few instances of them grading leftist statements as false or mostly false.

Recent polls on college campuses show that support for free speech is at an all-time low, by a wide margin. Whereas there was almost unanimous support for free speech just 30 years ago, today a large contingent of the college left believes that free speech needs to take a back seat to social justice.

It bothers me tremendously that a bigger portion of the US than ever believes that unchecked free speech needs to end.

[Rick Sanchez]

Like, what is the right's equivalent of Bill Maher?

i want to say lincoln project but i also strongly suspect they are going to go full wet-gremlin about 10 minutes after biden is sworn in and burn all that good will to the ground.

Their act has already gotten pretty stale, I'm sad to say. I was a big fan of their work this summer, but it's grown more obnoxious and sophomoric as the notoriety has gone to their head. Some of these cringey ads with childish nicknames (Little Marco) sound like mickeycrimm wrote them.

I also just don't see a reason for them to keep doing this now that the general election is over. Even during the election they made SO many more ads than necessary, and took so much donor money, that it was probably counterproductive to defeating republicans. I'm sure they were a net positive overall, but could have been way more efficient without taking money of out of actual campaign coffers.

[Rick Sanchez]

lol who on PFA was supporting Twitter's censorshp of the NYP Biden story? I only recall seeing two "liberals" (if I'm to be included in that category) comment on it, both finding it foul

Complaining about cancel culture is exactly what I'm talking about. That's not censorship, it's the marketplace of ideas doing its thing. If you can't take the heat for saying controversial things, that's your problem. Obviously workplace discrimination isn't okay, but how pervasive is that really

[sonatine]

cool cool

[Dan Druff]

Like, what is the right's equivalent of Bill Maher?

i want to say lincoln project but i also strongly suspect they are going to go full wet-gremlin about 10 minutes after biden is sworn in and burn all that good will to the ground.

Wait, you still believe The Lincoln Project are Republicans?

I thought we've been over this like 10 times already. And no, I'm not saying they are RINOs because they don't support Trump, or whatever. Their ads and talking points are all direct parroting of modern leftist talking points, not same-side criticism like you see from people like Maher.

They switched sides because they are grifters with no real ideology anymore.

[sonatine]

counterpoint:

they are, in fact, actual republicans who rejected this weird new evangalist supergrift cult of trump, and the people denying the new cult for what it is are in it.

[Dan Druff]

lol who on PFA was supporting Twitter's censorshp of the NYP Biden story? I only recall seeing two "liberals" (if I'm to be included in that category) comment on it, both finding it foul

Complaining about cancel culture is exactly what I'm talking about. That's not censorship, it's the marketplace of ideas doing its thing. If you can't take the heat for saying controversial things, that's your problem. Obviously workplace discrimination isn't okay, but how pervasive is that really

So you don't think censorship can exist via corporate punishment for wrongthink?

Censorship can exist in many forms. It doesn't have to come from the government.

Suffering career consequences for extreme individual ideas is fine. However, when there's intense public pressure to ruin people's careers because they don't go along with the new left playbook, that's a problem. Look at Mario Lopez, for example. There was an organized attempt to ruin his career simply because he said that he didn't think transgender 3-year-olds were indicative of proper parenting. He had to come out with an asskissy, insincere apology in order to keep working.

That's the type of shit I'm talking about. If the new normal is that you will find yourself harshly punished for publicly straying from leftist talking points, we have a problem. That's what Chomsky's open letter was about.

There's the separate problem of outright censorship (such as the Twitter NY Post thing), but honestly it's all wrapped up in the same package. Too many on the left feel that it's become appropriate to end the open and free exchange of ideas.

[Dan Druff]

counterpoint:

they are, in fact, actual republicans who rejected this weird new evangalist supergrift cult of trump, and the people denying the new cult for what it is are in it.

Counter counter point:

If they were actual Republicans, we would be seeing right wing talking points from them, and an intelligent defense of how today's Trumpian right is incompatible with true conservatism.

Instead we are seeing nothing but parroting of left-wing views. I don't even believe those views are genuine, either. These are just rejects from the Bush-era GOP who had to reinvent themselves to keep the grift going, and they took on this new phony "We are Republicans who hate Trump" persona, so they could stand out.

It actually worked. Tons of people fell for it, including you apparently.

Don't take my word for it. Here are some cartoon people created by Steven Colbert, basically calling out the entire thing as a bullshit grift:

[Dan Druff]

BTW, while he's not an entertainer or talking head, Mitt Romney is an example of a real conservative who simply hates Trump.

Romney has gotten a lot of shit from certain conservative circles, called a RINO, etc. It's undeserved. He's a legit conservative, as he always has been, and just couldn't bring himself to get aboard the Trump train. Lots of his criticisms of Trump are fair, and I can respect that.

The Lincoln Project is no Mitt Romney.

[sonatine]

interesting!

lets compare something for a sec... now you. you're a republican.

george conway is a fraud.

thats the argument at bar.

ok cool so here's what george conway has accomplished:

George Thomas Conway III (born September 2, 1963) is an American attorney. On the shortlist of candidates considered by President Donald Trump for Solicitor General of the United States prior to the nomination in March 2017 of Noel Francisco, he was subsequently considered for a post as an assistant attorney general heading the Civil Division at the United States Department of Justice, but withdrew himself from consideration. In 2018, Conway emerged as a vocal Trump critic, even though his wife, Kellyanne Conway, worked for Trump from 2016 to 2020.

Conway successfully argued the 2010 case Morrison v. National Australia Bank before the Supreme Court of the United States.

In 1987 and 1988, Conway served as a law clerk to Judge Ralph K. Winter Jr. of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. In September 1988, Conway joined the law firm of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz. He was named a partner of the firm in the Litigation Department in January 1994.[7] His practice focused on litigation involving securities, mergers and acquisitions, contracts, and antitrust.[7]

Conway was one of the attorneys who represented Paula Jones in her lawsuit against U.S. president Bill Clinton.[8][9] During the representation of Jones, he worked closely with Ann Coulter and Matt Drudge.[10]

On March 29, 2010, Conway argued the securities case of Morrison v. National Australia Bank before the U.S. Supreme Court. Conway won the case, which was decided by an 8–0 vote; the opinion was written by Justice Antonin Scalia.[11]

Conway has been considered for some United States Department of Justice posts. In January 2017, he was considered for the post of Solicitor General. The job eventually went to Noel Francisco.[12][13][14] On March 17, 2017, it was reported that he would be nominated to run the United States Department of Justice Civil Division.[15][16][17][18] However, on June 2, 2017, Conway announced that he declined to pursue the post.[19][20] On November 16, 2018, Conway stated that a reason he did not join the Trump administration was because it is "like a shitshow in a dumpster fire".[21]


ok your turn.

what have you accomplished, as a republican?

like aside from winning the bracelet of course.

like what makes you a republican but george conway not a republican, exactly.

[gut]

BTW, while he's not an entertainer or talking head, Mitt Romney is an example of a real conservative who simply hates Trump.

Romney has gotten a lot of shit from certain conservative circles, called a RINO, etc. It's undeserved. He's a legit conservative, as he always has been, and just couldn't bring himself to get aboard the Trump train. Lots of his criticisms of Trump are fair, and I can respect that.

The Lincoln Project is no Mitt Romney.

You would have thought Romney would have joined the Trump train, after the cartel killed 5 of his wives a little ways back.

[sonatine]

also id have voted for romney over biden i think, depending on his vip choice and sundry platform particulars.

like biden is certainly a better option than trump but i genuinely believe bidens going to get fucking styled on by the republican senate and its going get fuckin ugly.

like mitch literally told him 'oh yeah we will work with you just give us 8 months or so to re-org and take some vacations brah' and biden bragged about this, because apparently he forgot that 90% of anything an administration gets done happens in the first 8 months.

fuckin biden...

[Rick Sanchez]

Mario Lopez did not have to get on his knees and beg forgiveness. His career would have been fine. He probably just succumbed to social pressure. Which, honestly, is a great system even if misapplied here.

[sonatine]

also i feel like we are tap dancing around something; the lincoln project was a psy-op, it wasnt a platform for change.

that it was a psy-op ran by dissident republicans seems self evident, which is why im confused to hear it disparaged as some failed leftist coup.