It's gotten worse: I'm so tired of rampant crime that I'm up for a little surveillance. And I used to donate to the ACLU before they went crazy.

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georgemcbay an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I am also tired of rampant crime in this country, but unfortunately they aren't installing these cameras in boardrooms or the meeting rooms of politicians, so I don't think they are going to do much to deter the real crimes that are hurting our society.

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estebank 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> And I used to donate to the ACLU before they went crazy.

When was that? Because in 1977 they defended Nazi's free speech to demonstrate in a town that had jewish people as half its population so it tried to block them, and I don't recall them doing anything nearly that controversial since.

https://www.aclu.org/news/free-speech/the-skokie-case-how-i-...

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selectodude 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah that’s when they actually defended free speech. They now take sides on what speech should be allowed. That’s crazy.

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ceejayoz 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> They now take sides on what speech should be allowed.

Alternative framing: Given limited resources and lots of things to care about, they pick the specific cases that best improve the freedoms they're interested in protecting.

In the case of the Second Amendment, they decided to let the NRA handle it, as that seems to be working just fine.

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selectodude an hour ago | parent | next [-]

I mean defending horrible shitty people who are exercising their 1st amendment rights.

The ACLU should defend people who suck ass and another group should defend the heroes who beat their ass for saying awful shit.

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ceejayoz an hour ago | parent [-]

Sure. But there's 100 shitty people and you have to pick one or two.

So maybe you pick the anti-ICE protester instead of the Nazi to help out. Both got shot with pepper balls, both had their rights infringed upon. Why not pick the one who isn't a complete ass to establish the same precedent with?

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selectodude an hour ago | parent [-]

I agree 100%, I’d rather the ACLU picked their battles and if there’s a choice, not pick a Nazi. But I’m not a huge fan about how they’ve explicitly said they won’t defend hate speech. It’s a betrayal of their original cause.

	▲	ceejayoz an hour ago \| parent [-]
		> But I’m not a huge fan about how they’ve explicitly said they won’t defend hate speech. They've explicitly said the opposite. https://www.aclu.org/news/civil-liberties/defending-speech-w... 2023: "We joined Young Americans for Freedom, the Cato Institute, and other unlikely partners in filing an amicus brief on behalf of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression in its challenge to New York’s new law regulating 'hateful conduct' in social media."

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CamperBob2 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

A disingenuous take. The ACLU has actively published anti-2A literature in the past, arguing (as all such arguments must) that only the police, government, and military forces should have access to effective weapons.

	▲	ceejayoz 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I mean, the ACLU is allowed to say they don't interpret the Second the individualist way you do. That's their First Amendment right, yes? The Second is probably the amendment least in need of defending by the ACLU. It's well covered, and pretty much a third rail of American politics.

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nxm 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]

	▲	ceejayoz an hour ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Gosh, the ACLU? Activists? Say it ain't so!
	▲	triceratops 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's always been an activist organization. Even defending Nazis' free speech is activism. You just don't like their current activities.

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whimsicalism 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

the difference is that they would not do this today

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BryantD 2 hours ago | parent [-]

2017: the ACLU defends Milo Yiannopoulos' right to advertise his new book. They file an amicus brief in the Supreme Court supporting a Tea Party supporter challenging a ban on wearing political insignia at polling places.

2018: the ACLU supports the NRA's First Amendment challenge to Governor Cuomo's attempt to convince NY financial institutions not to do business with the NRA.

2019: they defended a conservative student magazine which was denied funding by UCSD.

2020: they filed a brief supporting antisemitic protestors picketing a synagogue on the Sabbath. They also supported a Catholic school's religious right to make religious-based choices in hiring and firing teachers.

I'm just quoting the fruits of five minutes of research here, so I won't go on (but there's more). Is it possible that you're reacting to the radical conservative stereotyping of the ACLU rather than the actual actions of the organization?

	▲	whimsicalism 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		It's very possible that I'm misinformed, but if so it was mostly from reading 'radical conservatives' like the NYT and other related reporting, along with ex-ACLU lawyers. [0] 0: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/06/us/aclu-free-speech.html I think this is particularly noted as a post-2022 shift

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xhkkffbf 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yup. Some "teens" can riding down my street with a pellet gun shooting at the cars. They ended up breaking 3 to 5 windows. It probably cost us collectively $3000++.

The only problem with the license plate readers is that the "teens" drive cars with fake tags. They deliberately copy the plate numbers from some granny with the same model. Makes it fun when the SWAT team knocks on Granny's door.

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mothballed 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Ha ha ha, you think it'll be used to help you? A hit and run drived totaled my car at an intersection with cameras, the cops would not even show up even though it was all on camera. When I called insurance they didn't bat an eye, the claims person pretty obviously was used to this happening all the time and didn't even question why I wasn't able to get a police report.

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FireBeyond 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Happened with my step daughter. Traffic light at intersection. She said she had a green light, so did the other driver.

Cops -did- show up. "Did you have a green light" "I did." Less than 30 seconds of questions. Goes to the other driver, same, is back in under a minute. "Well, he said he's absolutely sure he had a green light, so I'm citing you for failing to obey a traffic signal".

There were no cameras in the area, no witnesses, just the two drivers. But the other driver was a 50 something male, and my step daughter was 17 and upset because it was our car. So the cop took his word and cited her.

Hmm, vehicle black box? If that showed that she had come to and been at a stop, and then accelerated, that would at least imply she had been at a red light, and gone when it turned green, as she said.

No, no interest there. Even the insurer (fine, whatever), said "unless we're facing a six digit payout, we're not pulling the black box".

Don't even start me on the fact that after our insurance denied liability, the other driver sued her in small claims court for $10,000 for a car that had a KBB of $1,450. And the small claims judge noted that he technically couldn't sue a minor in small claims, but required us to go to mandatory arbitration, where the arbitrator said, quote, "I don't understand why, as a decent human being, if insurance will pay out, you don't just accept the claim." (Yeahhhh, filed a complaint about that, too. And here I stop, because I feel my blood pressure rising lol).

	▲	cucumber3732842 an hour ago \| parent [-]
		So the system worked exactly as intended? It's not just auto insurance. Every government, government adjacent and highly regulated process is just like that. It's not about right and wrong or fairness or making the responsible party pay or saving the children or protecting the environment or preventing sub-prime loans or enforcing building code or or whatever the alleged pretext is. It's about having an efficient process turn the subjective into the quantifiable and/or assign financial responsibility and do so in a manner that's not flagrantly wrong so often that a "large enough to be a problem" amount of people seek recourse outside the system (like smoking the CEO on the sidewalk or armoring a bulldozer or whatever). But of course, marketing the system as though it's about right and wrong or fairness or whatever is what they do as a means toward what the point actually is so it's easy to understand why you think it failed instead of worked perfectly.