Unarmed protestor shot dead at Capitol, Trump & conservatives banned on social media. ACLU Kate Ruane's main focus is the rights of leftists & skin tone

posted 3 years ago by w-duranty6489 3 years ago by w-duranty6489 +55 / -0

https://archive.vn/mZwJ0 washingtontimes

ACLU raises concerns amid Twitter's ban of Trump

By Ryan Lovelace - The Washington Times - Friday, January 8, 2021

The American Civil Liberties Union on Friday is raising concerns about social media platforms banning users, in the aftermath of Twitter’s decision to permanently suspend President Trump.

While the ACLU has repeatedly locked horns with Mr. Trump and his administration over issues such as the president’s travel ban, the ACLU is worried about the ramifications of tech companies diminishing online speech.

“We understand the desire to permanently suspend him now, but it should concern everyone when companies like Facebook and Twitter wield the unchecked power to remove people from platforms that have become indispensable for the speech of billions — especially when political realities make those decisions easier,” said Kate Ruane, ACLU senior legislative counsel, in a statement.

“President Trump can turn to his press team or Fox News to communicate with the public, but others — like the many Black, Brown, and LGBTQ activists who have been censored by social media companies — will not have that luxury.”

Ms. Ruane said it is her hope that the tech companies will apply their rules equally to everyone.

https://archive.vn/w3NCV nytimes

Capitol Rioters Walked Away. Climate Protesters Saw a Double Standard.

“There’s two worlds,” said one community activist who has been arrested several times at nonviolent protests. “And we’ve got to fix that.”

By John Schwartz Jan. 7, 2021

Even so, the apparently light treatment of Wednesday’s protesters troubled Kate Ruane, senior legislative counsel at the American Civil Liberties Union, who said that the treatment of the predominantly white crowd was far more gentle than the police response to many of the antiracism protesters and climate change activists of color, including the clearing last year of Lafayette Square in Washington with chemical irritants and force, and the treatment of Native American activists and others opposing pipeline projects.

Reminder that Ashli Babbit was unarmed when she was shot with a real bullet at the Capitol. And tear gas was also used there. Unlike leftist protestors, who only ever faced rubber bullets.

The modern ACLU is not the ACLU of the 1970s.

After all, if leftists control the Presidency, Congress, House, social media, press, military, who's going to stop leftists from their free speech rights of praising communism?

The modern ACLU doesn't need to pretend to defend everyone's rights any more. They can just protect leftist rights and leftist speech.

Human rights? More like leftist rights.

https://archive.vn/jf3lO reason

Would the ACLU Still Defend Nazis' Right To March in Skokie?

Former Executive Director Ira Glasser discusses the past, present, and increasingly shaky future of free speech.

NICK GILLESPIE | FROM THE JANUARY 2021 ISSUE

I went to one of the half-dozen best law schools in the country a year or two ago to speak. And it was a gratifying sight to me, because the audience was a rainbow. There were as many women as men. There were people of every skin color and every ethnicity. It was the kind of thing that when I was at the ACLU 20, 30, 40 years ago was impossible. It was the kind of thing we dreamed about. It was the kind of thing we fought for. So I'm looking at this audience and I am feeling wonderful about it. And then after the panel discussion, person after person got up, including some of the younger professors, to assert that their goals of social justice for blacks, for women, for minorities of all kinds were incompatible with free speech and that free speech was an antagonist.

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– censorthisss 13 points 3 years ago +14 / -1

the country a year or two ago to speak. And it was a gratifying sight to me, because the audience was a rainbow. There were as many women as men. There were people of every skin color and every ethnicity. It was the kind of thing that when I was at the ACLU 20, 30, 40 years ago was impossible. It was the kind of thing we dreamed about. It was the kind of thing we fought for. So I'm looking at this audience and I am feeling wonderful about it. And then after the panel discussion, person after person got up, including some of the younger professors, to assert that their goals of social justice for blacks, for women, for minorities of all kinds were incompatible with free speech and that free speech was an antagonist

As I said, when I came to the ACLU, my major passion was social justice, particularly racial justice. But my experience was that free speech wasn't an antagonist. It was an ally. It was a critical ally. I said this to the audience, and I was astonished to learn that most of them were astonished to hear it—I mean, these were very educated, bright young people, and they didn't seem to know this history.

Another classic liberal who is completely clueless about the fact that the left has gone off the deep end. I guess maybe this opened his eyes but he doesn't really elaborate on that point so it's hard to say.

I told them that there is no social justice movement in America that has ever not needed the First Amendment to initiate its movement for justice, to sustain its movement for justice, to help its movement survive. Martin Luther King Jr. knew it. Margaret Sanger knew it. [The labor leader] Joe Hill knew it. I can think of no better explication of it than the late, sainted John Lewis, who said that without free speech and the right to dissent, the civil rights movement would have been a bird without wings. And that's historically and politically true without exception. For people who today claim to be passionate about social justice to establish free speech as an enemy is suicidal.

Let's hope their demise comes before the get what they want and it's turned against them.

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