Dissent Must Be Stifled
In a nightmarish, Rovian plot to suppress free speech, dissent must be crushed. The board members must never speak of disagreements. Nobody must know what goes on in the secret meetings. A cloak of darkness must be drawn tight over the proceedings of the most secretive administration in history. Dissent cannot be tolerated and will be rooted out. Leakers will be exposed and persecuted.
The latest news on the administration? Nope. The ACLU.
The American Civil Liberties Union is weighing new standards that would discourage its board members from publicly criticizing the organization's policies and internal administration.
"Where an individual director disagrees with a board position on matters of civil liberties policy, the director should refrain from publicly highlighting the fact of such disagreement," the committee that compiled the standards wrote in its proposals.
"Directors should remember that there is always a material prospect that public airing of the disagreement will affect the A.C.L.U. adversely in terms of public support and fund-raising," the proposals state.
Where are the high principles? Where are the absolutist standards? Where's the love?
"For the national board to consider promulgating a gag order on its members — I can't think of anything more contrary to the reason the A.C.L.U. exists," Mr. Hentoff added.
The proposals say that "a director may publicly disagree with an A.C.L.U. policy position, but may not criticize the A.C.L.U. board or staff." But Wendy Kaminer, a board member and a public critic of some decisions made by the organization's leadership, said that was a distinction without a difference.
Honestly, I thought this was a hoax. It's too funny to be real, right? Right?
Yeah, right.
Welcome to the brave, new ACLU.
UPDATE: Others are also seeing a problem here. Jeff Goldstein, The Sandbox, Jawa Report, Dr. Sanity, Captain's Quarters and Stop The ACLU.
Other Links to this Post
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Stop The ACLU — May 24, 2006 @ 8:48 am
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The Sandbox — May 24, 2006 @ 10:28 am
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Random Thoughts Of Yet Another Military Member » Blog Archive » A.C.L.U. May Block Criticism by Its Board — May 24, 2006 @ 3:27 pm
By jpe, May 24, 2006 @ 8:58 am
Free speech as a constitutional issue is only implicated when the government is suppressing speech. Unless the ACLU has become the government in the last few hours and I didn’t notice, you’d have to be deeply, deeply retarded to construe this as hypocrisy.
By Gaius, May 24, 2006 @ 9:00 am
I know full well what free speech is. many of my commenters do not. You can try commenting again next week, but as of right now you are banned for a while since you cannot comment without abuse.