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June 27, 2003

Reason's Ronald Bailey: Why I became a card-carrying member of the ACLU

A Libertarian puts aside his reservations, and joins a new wave of conservatives and libertarians flocking to the ACLU.

(I did too, I just haven't written a piece about it...yet.)

Nadine and Me

Why I became a card-carrying member of the ACLU

June 20, 2003

Ronald Bailey

The American Civil Liberties Union has sent me quantities of junk mail soliciting me to
join for years. No doubt they picked my name from the mailing lists of a lot of
left-leaning publications to which I subscribe—after all you've got to know what
the other guys are up to. I often think of reading The Nation or The American
Prospect
as opposition research. And just as surely as those ACLU missives arrived,
they were chucked into my garbage can.

Now, it's not as though I am not sympathetic to a lot of what the ACLU is doing. I am
strongly in favor of its activities in defense of
free speech,
its efforts to maintain the proper separation of
church and state,
and the like.

But I've been less sanguine about its stands on things like private
freedom of association
and the
death penalty.
I agree with the ACLU that it is wrong for the Boy Scouts to exclude gays, but I also
don't think it's the government's business to try to force people to put up with one
another in voluntary organizations. If you don't like the Boy Scouts' homophobic policy,
then don't join and don't contribute. On the other hand, I agree with the ACLU that the
government should be
neutral
with regard to the question of who gets married to whom.

Though reasonable people of good will obviously disagree, my moral intuition tells me,
and the moral intuitions of the majority of Americans tell them, that the only suitable
punishment
for the heinous crime of premeditated murder is death. I hope it goes without saying
that the state must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt before killing someone.

Anyway, when I received another ACLU solicitation last month, I decided to send in my
check and sign up. Why now?

Full article...

Read It Rating: 9
Left/Right Rating: R3
Freedom Rating: 9
Learning Percentage: 55%

Posted by Lance Brown at June 27, 2003 08:09 PM | TrackBack
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