I mean, there's a poetry here - a convergence of hypocrisy, self-righteousness and panty-raid masculinity, which has become a trope of political bomb-throwers, right and left.
Conservatives, know how you love to mock liberal snowflake celebrities? Well, Schilling is your Madonna. Every time he spews, such as to compare all worldwide Muslims to Nazi Germany he hurts your cause. Yesterday, he told the ACLU, "Shut up."
Listen: I come from a right-wing family. No lie: My dad rooted for the Cowboys and Rams, because they were the cities that got the Kennedys. But get this: As a Conservative, he respected the ACLU. It fought in the Scopes trial. It defended the Jehovah's Witnesses, the Commies, the Nazis in Skogie, the right to privacy, freedom of speech and religion... When everybody else goes with the wind, the ACLU stands its ground. In the end, the cops won't save us. The politicians won't. It'll be some book-toting dweeb who can still recite the Bill of Rights And Curt says, "Shut up."
Every time Schilling opens his mouth, the Redsocks' 2004 comeback develops another canker sore. Every time he spews nonsense, Redsock fans lower their heads in shame. They'll never be free of the guy. And if they disagree, Curt just says, "Shut up."
El Duque, hmm sounds like an illegal, you need to shut your mouth. Curt is a true patriotic American. U S A, U S A, U S A!
ReplyDeleteThis nutwad is an embarrassment to the memory of Lou Gehrig and should be forced to abandon his twitter handle for something related to Ty Cobb.
ReplyDeleteYou are right on, Duque! The ACLU defends everyone's rights, even morons like the jingoist troll above - - not to mention Mr. Bloody Sock.
ReplyDeleteAfter the election, I decided to set up a small monthly donation to the ACLU - - from my measly monthly SS check. Too bad Mr. Ketchup-Sock didn't blurt this out a bit sooner - - I could've set it up in his name.
I believe in even-handedness, and I defy anyone to name an organization better suited to defend ALL our rights - - even the rights of cretins to spew their messages of hate - - than the ACLU. LB (No J), proud card-carrying member.
ReplyDeleteWell, I wasn't going to wade into this discussion, but I also "believe in even-handedness".
I am a child of conservative parents and grandparents.
I'm probably best characterized as a fiscal conservative but socially liberal. I.e., stop wasting my fucking money, assholes, and, no, I really don't care what you do behind closed doors, or what you do to your own body, or even in which bathroom you prefer to pee, as long as you don't hurt yourself or anyone else. I find I'm pretty tolerant, but I’ll admit my upbringing makes me want to ask you please to stop yammering about it.
Beginning in the mid-1980s and until the early 1990s, I was a card-carrying member of the ACLU for all the reasons everyone is mentioning here. I'm still of the opinion that, if you look closely at an issue, the ACLU is usually on the correct side of it. (There are exceptions, but these require the purchase of beer for me to go into them.)
I need to digress here to say that, because I'm a curious kind of guy, I have always kept track concerning who's using and selling my name on mailing lists. I won't go into detail, but long before the Internet, I had a fool-proof method for keeping track of these things.
In the course of doing this, I found that most magazines and organizations are fairly benign. The majority don't use or sell your name, period. Of the ones that do, most use your name for their own marketing purposes (e.g., if you subscribe to DIY magazine, you'll get a solicitation for woodworking plans ... published also by DIY magazine). All that's ok.
In my experience of doing this for 40 years (yes, since I was a teenager), the two most egregious offenders of selling the living shit out of their mailing lists were the ACLU and ~~~ drum roll ~~~ The New York Review of Books.
Let me first dispatch with the NY Review of Books first. Please be warned that giving them your name is like attending the Women's March on Washington and handing out business cards soaked in I-Hate-Men pheromones. You will get more solicitations from causes and organizations than you can shake a stick at. I subscribed for one year but received their detritus for 10-15 years after that. I have no idea what that's all about.
Believe it or not, the ACLU was worse. Once you join, your name gets sold everywhere. I was initially irked by this – after all, such a practice seems to run counter to some basic notions of privacy that I have – but I managed to calm down. UNTIL....
[...blogger.com limits you to 4096 characters, so this is a two-parter ... see next post for a continuation of this rant...]
ReplyDelete…continuing rant…
.…UNTIL....I began to get solicitations from organizations advocating censorship. I mean, c'mon, guys. The ACLU sells its members' names and addresses to causes promoting silencing others’ viewpoints. E.g., "We need to get Rush Limbaugh off our airwaves!"
I was appalled. I was angry. I wrote a nasty-gram to Ira Glasser, then the Executive Director, but heard nothing. So I stewed.
I decided – this was in the early 1990s – that, over the course of one year, I would collect all the mail that came to me as a result of the ACLU selling member names and addresses. I know it makes me sound like some tinfoil-hat-wearing, foaming-at-the-mouth paranoiac, but it was actually easy to do. I put a small box on a closet floor near the mail table and every time I got some piece of ACLU-related crap (i.e., 3-4 times per week), I would drop it in the box.
At the end of the year, I took the clump of 300 or so pieces of mail, literally tied a red ribbon around it, put it in a large box, and mailed the whole wad to Ira Glasser, Executive Director. I included a note indicating that, after 14 years of membership, I would not be renewing. I took the time to highlight the solicitations that advocated censorship. Finally, I told them they should all be ashamed of themselves.
I didn't hear anything from Ira G., but the executive director of the ACLU in my state (Rhode Island), wrote me a clueless, whining, piece-of-shit letter telling me I was 100% wrong in my position. He went on and on about how hard it was for organizations like the ACLU to raise funds and that they HAD to sell my name as a matter of survival.
That’s more or less where it ended, and it seems like I've gone on way too long about this. I just wanted everyone to know both sides.
So, maybe we should get together some time ... and drink beer ... and talk instead about the Yankees ... and how much Hal Steinbrenner sucks ... and if I start foaming at the mouth ... people can just buy me beer.
Please.
Wow, that sucks.
ReplyDeleteThere goes another icon of purity.
Still, Schilling...
ReplyDeleteYeah, sorry, but it really bummed me out when I figured it all out.
Maybe that rant came out because 2016 really did suck. I couldn't vote for Trump and I hated voting for Hillary. I couldn't vote for Bernie "free college for everyone!" Sanders, and I'm annoyed at my fellow citizens in the states who voted early for not giving John Kasich any traction. I was disappointed -- gravely disappointed -- by Gary Johnson and totally disgusted by Jeb Bush.
I'm happy the ACLU exists but I'm sad because I know something about how they operate. I suppose I should be glad they made Schilling look like a doofus, but I'm pretty sure Schilling would have made that happen all on his own. Schilling won't be a Senator and he won't be in the HOF but I'm not sure I care. I don't care that Jeb Bush spent $100 Million of some rich people's donations; I only wish that money could have been used to help people who've lost their jobs.
So, go Yankees. Maybe the starting rotation won't suck. Maybe we'll see some glimmers of Spring Training wonder from all our prospects and maybe we'll see the future.
Maybe the weather will be nice on Opening Day.
Maybe we'll feel some honest-to-goodness hope.
Maybe we just have to get through February.
Ok, guys, I am the first to acknowledge that the ACLU isn't perfect - - not, however, for the reason that seems to bother LBJ - - the ACLU does NOT censor - - not even the stupidest of speech, or ideas - - I do not think it would be a virtue to only allow those who agree with your views to use your mailing-list. ALL this type of organization is starving to raise money - - you can look at Huffington Post - - pretty much leftist - - and you will find click-bait on there from Newsmax, and other right-wing groups. I don't hold that against them one bit - - in fact, I think it's kind of amusing that they are willing to take the money from the right-wingers and help them blow it.
ReplyDeleteDo you think the ACLU loves Nazis?? I know they don't - - but they still sued for their right to march in Skokie - - and, even though I abhor Naziism, I applaud that action.
I, too, parted company from them - - some time in the 80s, actually - - over Buckley v. Valeo (the 1976 decision which made it possible for Citizens United, etc....I do NOT agree that money is valid political speech - - so I dropped my membership for quite a number of years - - and I let them know why I did that....BUT - - over those years, I still kept track of their actions, and I found myself agreeing with nearly everything else they did - - their court-cases, their releases, etc....so when Dub-yah stole the election in 2000, I rejoined. I let them know in no uncertain terms that I still disagree violently w/ the money=political speech thing. But I'm still proud that I am once again a Guardian of Liberty (as they call their monthly donors).
Find me an organization that is more worthy of support, and that is not a narrow special-interest group - - and I will gladly be enlightened. Until that time, the ACLU is nearly the only ones I trust....Hey, I LAUGH when I get mail from right-wing organizations - - I tell them off, and send a reply back, AT THEIR EXPENSE when they're trolling for donations - - let them waste their money...then, at least, they won't give it to the current buffoons who are allegedly "in charge".
Meanwhile, I agree: Go, Yanks!! Drain the management swamp!! LB (No J)
ReplyDeleteLB:
As an experiment, subtly change the spelling of the name under which you're registered as a member of the ACLU. For example, if you're currently listed as "Larry G. Brown" with them, change that to "Larry U. Brown". Your mail will still be delivered to you, but you'll now be able to see how the ACLU handles its knowledge of who you are and where you live.
After that, you can just sit back and watch who they've sold your name to. Not just to whom, but how many times.
I personally didn't like the hypocrisy of, on one hand, actively suing people and organizations who would deny free speech, while simultaneously selling my name to someone who wanted me to deny the free speech of others ... and continuing to do so after I brought the matter to their attention.
Different strokes, I suppose.
Go Yanks.
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