Free speech – ACLU Style
Posted on February 22, 2009
Freedom for Leftist viewpoints only, of course
“I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion,” wrote one particularly ambitious contributor in his 1935 Harvard 30th anniversary classbook. “I seek social ownership of all property, the abolition of the propertied class, and sole control by those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal.”
Seventy-two years later, the American Civil Liberties Union still abides by those words – penned by its founder, Roger Baldwin, who, incidentally, also said that advancing “civil liberties” in countries like the Soviet Union or its satellite nations really wasn’t all that important. Happily, most of those nations have come around to a different viewpoint. But while the rotten tree of communism has fallen around the world, there remains one last stubborn root not far from the coast of Florida: Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Cuba remains the ACLU’s “Fantasy Island,” where – to hear them tell it – happy Marxist children play together in perfect harmony, and the state makes sure its citizens are cared for from cradle to grave.
At least that’s the glorious depiction in a book titled Vamos a Cuba (”Let’s Visit Cuba”) that the ACLU wanted to keep on the bookshelves of a Florida school. The book makes the communist state sound like a trip to DisneyWorld. But as it did on the TV show Fantasy Island, illusion in Cuba quickly gives way to harsh reality. While the book is filled with commentaries on how Cubans enjoy chicken with rice, it neglects to mention that, under the country’s subsidized ration plan, the average Cuban is allowed only 8 ounces per month. Cubans are shown “boating,” but “boating” for most Cubans means trying to escape from the repressive regime on fragile, homemade rafts. And mysteriously missing is any mention of the 20-year prison sentences handed out to Cuban poets, journalists, and priests who don’t fall on their knees and worship the communist regime.
When a Cuban-American parent who had escaped political imprisonment in Castro’s “utopia” expressed his concern that the book only showed the Cuba its communist leaders wanted children to see, the Miami-Dade County school board evaluated the book and agreed. They pulled the book from its school libraries. That’s when the ACLU – always eager to preserve delusion – got involved and sued the school district. This is the same ACLU that endorsed an amendment lifting the ban on tourist travel to Cuba – a long distance slap in the face to Cubans, who now watch foreign tourists feed corruption, pesos, and dollars to the communist government.
Thankfully, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit recently came down on the side of the school board and ruled they could remove the book. But the ACLU is not giving up, pledging “further legal action.”
Now, you might be saying, why all this fuss about a little book – one more annoying gnat amid the ACLU’s swarm of legal mosquitoes? Well, the irony is that even while the ACLU is suing to allow communist indoctrination into public school libraries, it is suing to keep a lot of other books – which don’t line up with ACLU ideology – out. Want your child to learn about other views besides evolution? The ACLU says no. Evolution must be taught, and other options, such as intelligent design, must be silenced. Want your child to learn that marriage is the union of one man and one woman? The ACLU says no. “Alternative lifestyles” must reign supreme in the classroom – all in the name of tolerance and “diversity.” Want your child to learn that abstinence is the only 100-percent effective way to prevent teen pregnancy? The ACLU says no. Schoolchildren must learn how to engage in potentially harmful sexual behaviors at any time and any place.
When it’s something the ACLU wants your children to learn, regardless how inaccurate the presentation, they will sue to silence parents and force-feed their leftist view of “education” on America’s children.
A majority of American parents clearly don’t realize how determined the ACLU is to impose its will on them, to indoctrinate their children, and to promote its own warped legal “vision” for America. It’s a vision that’s closer to the harsh reality of Castro’s Cuba than the fantasies books like “Let’s Visit Cuba” want America’s children – and grown-ups – to believe.
(For more postings from me, see TONGUE-TIED, DISSECTING LEFTISM, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, EYE ON BRITAIN and Paralipomena . List of backup or “mirror” sites here or here — for readers in China or for everyone when blogspot is “down” or failing to update. My Home Pages are here or here or here. Email me (John Ray) here.)
» Filed Under 1st Amendment, ACLU, Anti-Americanism, Child Exploitation, Christianity, Communism, Culture of Death, Domestic Enemies, Education, History, Homosexual Agenda, Hypocrisy/Situational Ethics, Indoctrination, Marxism, Moral Relativism, News, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Psychology, Revisionism, Science/pseudo-science, Secular Humanism, Social Engineering, Socialism, Unhinged, Viewpoint discrimination
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7 Responses to “Free speech – ACLU Style”
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ACLU is only concerned with their agenda. When I contacted them about New Jersey ( and other states) Offices of Kosher Food enforcement they refused to look into the case. Yes government paid enforcement of an ancient Jewish religious custom.
Dennis D on February 22nd, 2009 10:22 am
Whats your point?
You’re against standards for food regulation?
I’ll pick on one thing that I’m a little more knowledgeable about than the others. You said:
“Evolution must be taught, and other options, such as intelligent design, must be silenced.”
If ID is taught in a scientific context, then I have to say that the ACLU’s opposition to it is justified, though I would prefer a scientific organization rather than a political group arguing this. The reason why ID currently has no place in education is that its advocates have not put forth any predictive falsifiable claims that would allow us to test for design, much less any experimental data supporting such claims. Because (as far as I know) we don’t have any means by which to observe, infer, and predict empirical results from an ID theoretical framework, it does not count as science.
For an example of a predictive claim that would disprove evolution’s central claim of descent with modification, all one has to do is find a cat fossil, for instance, perform genetic sequencing on it to confirm that it is indeed a cat, but show that the fossil is older than the evolutionary forerunners to cats. This would demonstrate that the organism arose spontaneously, thereby contradicting evolution.
The Snooze on February 22nd, 2009 2:02 pm
Is the “Big Bang” taught as a science topic?
Dale on February 22nd, 2009 4:39 pm
Yes it is, and it is valid in that there is plenty of empirical evidence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_bang_theory#Observational_evidence) that verifies the predictions and implications stemming from its claim that, with respect to an initial condition of the early universe being a super-dense highly-energetic mass, our universe continues to expand to this day.
I fail to see why you bring this up. The big bang and evolutionary theories stand independent of one another. This is like discussing the theory of computation (the study of the properties of algorithms) when trying to refute electromagnetic theory (the study of how charges react to other masses and their respective electric and magnetic forces).
“Want your child to learn about other views besides evolution? The ACLU says no. Evolution must be taught, and other options, such as intelligent design, must be silenced.”
Who cares what the ACLU says about science education? Let’s ask the biology teachers. All competent biology teachers agree with this famous quote: “Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution.” It’s impossible to properly teach biology without making evolution a major part of every single lesson every single day.
Evolution is the only scientific explanation for the diversity of life. All alternate explanations are religious ideas, and competent biology teachers would rather quit their jobs than be forced to preach somebody else’s religious beliefs.
Intelligent design is the idea that scientists should be allowed to invoke supernatural magic to solve scientific problems. That’s not doing science. That’s preaching. The author of this article is nuts if he thinks he can force biology teachers to become preachers.
By the way, evolution is not a “view”. It’s a scientific fact. There are many facts in evolutionary biology and those facts are the strongest facts of science. The only people who have a problem with those facts are uneducated religious extremists like the author of this article.
The Snooze on February 22nd, 2009 9:52 pm
If ID is taught in a scientific context, then I have to say that the ACLU’s opposition to it is justified, though I would prefer a scientific organization rather than a political group arguing this. The reason why ID currently has no place in education is that its advocates have not put forth any predictive falsifiable claims that would allow us to test for design, much less any experimental data supporting such claims. Because (as far as I know) we don’t have any means by which to observe, infer, and predict empirical results from an ID theoretical framework, it does not count as science.
I actually agree with you more than I was able to communicate.
My point was there is also no falsifiable way to prove anything as far as the big bang is concerned. The conditions at that time are unknowable and untestable.
I understand your point about being 2 topic. This is the same point I make to others when the discussions of creation vs evolution come up… they are 2 different topic. For some reason, a lot of people don’t understand this. Science offers zero explanation for the “origins of it all”, making any attempt to do so an element of faith as much as the position of creationism is.
But I agree that ID should not be in a science class. I assume you would not be opposed to it being presented in another framework?