Join the ACLU.

[Mr. Designer]

EXPANDED QUOTE:
"My "chief aversion" is the system of greed, private profit, privilege, and violence which makes up the control of the world today, and which has brought it the tragic crisis of unprecedented hunger and unemployment. I am opposed to the new deal because it strives to strengthen and prolong production for private profit. At bottom I am for conserving the full powers of every person on earth by expanding them to their individual limits. Therefore, I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the State itself as an instrument of property, the abolition of the propertied class and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal. It sums up into one single purpose -- the abolition of the system of dog-eat-dog under which we live, and the substitution by the most effective non-violence possible of a system of cooperative ownership and use of all wealth." - Roger Baldwin, founder of the ACLU

Source: Robert C. Cottrell, Roger Nash Baldwin and the American Civil Union, page 228-29 (2000)

 

[ilbob]

With no indication of exactly who comprises the board.

My understanding is that there is no election of officers or trustees in the aclu. existing trustees select new trustees and officers.

Very few advocacy groups actually have elections to determine their leaders.

 

[amper]

That "Expanded Quote" came from 1935. Baldwin repudiated his stance on Communism later in life when he came to understand the Soviet Union much better. You might try reading his book, "A New Slavery: The Communist Betrayal of Human Rights", from 1953

 

[mgregg85]

I like the infiltration idea a lot, I just wonder about its feasibility. Alternatively we could take a page from the Brady Bunch's book and make our own spin off of the ACLU, could call it the American Civil Liberties Association. Then we could discredit the ACLU for not supporting all the civil liberties.

 

[Vicious-Peanut]

Ahahaha, no way in hell.

 

[bl4ckd0g]

I will not support an organization like the ACLU who defends some very questionable and legally dubious groups. I'd rather see my charitable contributions and time go into a more focused goal.

 

[351 WINCHESTER]

ACLU?? Too liberal for me.

 

[lamazza]

I do, however, send the ACLU a Christmas Card every year!

lol me too!

 

[obxned]

Yeah, the best way to promote abstinence is to became a hooker.

 

[bensdad]

Yeah, um, I was gonna join the ACLU. Then I noticed that abortion is not a constitutionally protected right. I also noticed that Christianity is not constitutionally banned.

The ACLU has nothing to offer me.

THey have never (seldom?) tried to assist conservatives in any attempt to exercise their rights. They offer assistance to:
1) the KKK
2) NAMBLA
3) Muslims
4) gay community
5) evolutionists wanting to ban a Christian interpretation

Only one of those has anything to do with civil liberties articulated in the COTUS.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

bensdad has it figured out.

 

[buzz_knox]

THey have never (seldom?) tried to assist conservatives in any attempt to exercise their rights. They offer assistance to:

They supported those groups because (officially) the groups that are the most hated are often the first abused, and that abuse has a habit of bleeding over to abuse of those who are next in line of hatred, then the next, then the next. The fact that doing so gets publicity for the ACLU and funds doesn't hurt.

However, that doesn't explain their defense of the "learn the Koran or explain yourself" policy at UNC. It also doesn't explain their silence in other cases of constitutional violations when speaking up is against the ACLU's core beliefs. For example, we saw blatant violations of the Fifth Amendment in New Orleans when property was being illegally confiscated. However, property rights aren't particularly high on the ACLU's list and we all know their stated position on the Second Amendment. So, they never said a word.

The ACLU exists to serve the ACLU. If supporting certain civil rights will achieve that goal, the ACLU will be there, but the primary constituents of the ACLU will not allow it to become pro-gun rights.

 

[QuickRick]

Joining the ACLU????

Not a chance. First of all I disagree passionately with many of their positions outside the 2nd Amendment. Secondly, even if we could convert their thinking to pro RKBA via the infiltration technique, how much support ($$$$) and years would it take? Even if we could be successful in say 20 years, then for 19 years we would be contributing our heart, soul, and dollars into an organization that would be slitting our throats and zealously attacking the freedom that we so cherish...No way, no how.....

 

[cwmcgu2]

"The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under
the name of 'liberalism' they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist
program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without
knowing how it happened."
-Norman Thomas, co-founder of the ACLU and six-time U.S. Presidential candidate for the Socialist Party of America. (Quote from 1948 interview during presidential campaign)

 

[Mr. Designer]

I'll consider joining when the ACLU comes out and defends Rush Limbaugh's freedom of speech against the blatant attempt to silence him by the United States Senate.

 

[ronwill]

The ACLU is rooted in communism (check the history) and does not support the 2A. I will never join such an organization.

 

[denfoote]

Me Joining the ACLU would be like Tailgunner Joe joining the Communist Party!!

 

[CoRoMo]

If I ever join the ACLU, shoot me.

 

[RoadkingLarry]

I'd sooner nuke 'em from high orbit. I spent too big a chunk of my life fighting communism to give them money to join the american communist liberation union.

 

[mightyike]

They would laugh at you. All they want are dues and money. In theory, the ACLU sounds nice; in reality, lawyers making a living as parasites and ground carrion feeders (eating the dying too).

I'm a Democrat. I want to vote to prevent Hillary and Bill from returning to the White House....same theory, no dues. I still wonder who killed Foster. And why.

It's a long story but I'm on your page. No one tells me who to vote for- thought we could impact primaries.

 

[cwmcgu2]

Joining the ACLU isn't the right thing to do for us 2nd Amendment activists. Sure they are a powerful force for the protection of free speech and other important issues. But that does not justify supporting them in light of their underlying subversive message of socialism. It would be like supporting Hitler, he had many "good" plans for Germany but they merely masked his underlying subversive message of facism and bigotry.

 

[Ragnar Danneskjold]

Sure they are a powerful force for the protection of free speech and other important issues.

No they aren't. They protect free speech for some. The ones that are speaking a liberal and leftist agenda. The ACLUs selective protection and defense of those who's rights are being trampled is more corrosive than helping no one at all.

 

[roo_ster]

The ACLU defends free speech it agrees with, nowadays.

It has been a long time since Skokie.

A similar silence greeted the cancellation of a speech by Minuteman leader Jim Gilchrist at Columbia University. Gilchrist and a colleague were driven off the stage at Columbia last year by angry radicals. Gilchrist was reinvited a month ago, but when the speech was announced, campus Hispanics, who consider him racist for opposing the flood of illegals into the country, pressured the relevant student authorities to ban him. The campus chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union thought about protesting but decided not to. Again, I was able to find only one professor willing to say that silencing Gilchrist was a bad idea. I asked Gilchrist if there were more. He said he knows of no other instructor who spoke out. The campus joke is that Gilchrist should have come out in favor killing gays and nuking Israel. Then he would have been as welcome as Mahoud Amadinejad.

 

[Kimber1911_06238]

if the ACLU had a majority of 2A supporters, the anti's would abandon the organization and it would become nothing more than a mini-NRA

 

[Dionysusigma]

From http://www.aclu.org/about/faqs/index.html :

"Does the ACLU have Communist roots? Was co-founder Roger Baldwin a Communist?
No, Roger Baldwin was not a communist. Like many of his contemporaries, he observed and wrote about the social and political issues in the early years of the Soviet Union, but later he wrote, "The Nazi-Soviet pact of 1939, a traumatic shock to me, ended any ambivalence I had about the Soviet Union, and all cooperation with Communists in united fronts."

Throughout the organization’s history and particularly during the McCarthy era, the ACLU, its members, staff and founders have been accused of being communists. The ACLU has no political affiliations and makes no test of individuals' ideological leanings a condition of membership or employment. Members and staff of the national ACLU and its affiliates may be Republicans, Democrats, Communists, Federalists, Libertarians, or members of any other political party or no party at all. What the ACLU asks of its staff and officials is that they consistently defend civil liberties and the Constitution."

ACLU's official stance on Firearm Issues: http://www.aclu.org/police/gen/14523res20020304.html

If I ever join the ACLU it will be for something totally unrelated to firearms, though the possibility is not out of the question.