Former ACLU Head Ira Glasser on Why You Can't Ban Hate Speech
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was founded on this day in 1920 "to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States". Also, "the ACLU is committed to defending speech rights without regard to whether the views expressed are consistent with or opposed to the ACLU’s core values, priorities and goals." At one time, the ACLU used to defend the KKK and Nazi's, but now they will stand against speech they feel denigrates certain people. “The ACLU stopped standing up for unpopular speech about 15 years ago, and today, they’re on the side of repressing people’s speech.” (Harmeet Dhillon) They seem to have forgotten that free speech is meant to protect the speech we despise, but recently they have morphed into a left-wing pressure group.
"It’s always the case throughout history that the free-speech test cases require the defense of very unpopular people saying very unpopular things … in order to defend free speech, you must believe in the worst things being said. This was the historical ACLU position." David Sacks
"I hope that ACLU will return to its roots and defend civil liberty. The antidote to hateful speech and disinformation is more speech, not censorship. The vast majority of people can think for themselves, despite elites telling us they must suppress information for 'our own good.'"
Perhaps we now have a bolder alternative with FIRE (Foundation for Individual Rights in Education). They Defend free speech, due process, and academic freedom on college campuses.
However, there still seems to be some light at the ACLU recently as some in the organization came out against the no-fly list and the deplatforming of Parler and Trump.
No comments:
Post a Comment