Open Mike Night at Stoptheaclu

Stoptheaclu sent out an email inviting an open thread discussion of the ACLU on the various blogs that make up their blogroll. Rather than pick a specific topic out of some list of outrages, I surfed over to the ACLU website and read some of their stuff.

The ACLU is a worthy collection of individuals who defend civil rights in court. Their website gives compelling reasons for their work and offers many stories of success in fighting for people who had been oppressed in one way or another. I watched their short video on gay rights and the people they interviewed were sincere and seemed to have been seriously wronged. Thank God there are lawyers who will take on the cases of people like these.

The ACLU as an organization or a movement, however, is a dinosaur. For example, gay rights is simply not an interesting topic any more. To repeat a common joke, homosexuality has gone from being the love that dare not speak it's name to the love that won't shut up. It has been protected by law to the point where unaffiliated lawyers specializing in Equal Employment Opportunity or discrimination law can take on these cases and win them in court. The ACLU is unnecessary in these instances.

The ACLU is an example of many institutions in our society that have long outlived their usefulness. At one point in time, the balance of power may have been too far on the side of institutions and a mass movement led by the ACLU may have been necessary to protect individuals. That time has come and gone, but we still have the institutions associated with that movement.

Like any other organism, the ACLU wishes to survive and grow. Since it lives by fulfilling a perceived need, it has to work constantly to create that perceived need. Hence the gay rights video on their website. That video, however, doesn't show masses of gays being herded into re-education camps, it shows individual gays being denied their rights by individual organizations. The video gives the impression that this is commonplace, but our own experience says that this is not.

I'm beginning to think that fighting the ACLU through direct attack on their causes may be inefficient. To me, the ACLU is simply irrelevant and should be fought that way. When they come out and complain about gay rights, the response should not be a hysteria about gays taking over the world, but instead a prolonged sigh and a pat on the head for the ACLU proponents saying, "Yes, dear, that's very nice. I'm glad you care. How about if you move on to something meaningful now?"

Hugh Hewitt had a great line on his show last night. In a meeting between the President and some citizens, the President was asked why the government was tapping phones and spying on people. The questioner said he had never been more afraid. Hugh laughed about it saying that here the person came out and slagged the President on national broadcast media about being terrified of the government and then drove home in safety. The fellow asking the question was totally unaware of the irony of his remarks.

In a society in need of the ACLU, that questioner would have been arrested and jailed. It didn't happen. The ACLU has outlived the real needs that created it.