Thought this was hilarious...

[vidcc]

This is a more eloquent version of what I am trying to get across

The ACLU and the NAMBLA Case

Much has been made of the fact that the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU has taken on a case defending NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, in a civil lawsuit arising from the kidnapping and killing of a 10 year old boy. There is no more controversial or emotionally-charged issue than this. NAMBLA is universally, and justifiably, viewed as a vile organization that advocates something that nearly everyone despises in the strongest possible terms. Unfortunately, that makes it a perfect target for demagoguery and superficial demonizing, and that is just what we have seen. One group has even begun a website called the "ACLU NAMBLA Rage Page" where people can register their revulsion. Bill O'Reilly has ranted against the ACLU for taking the case, as has virtually everyone on the right in America, and many people claim outright that the ACLU is fighting for the right to rape children. But in the midst of this understandably emotional outpouring, something has been lost - the legal issue. This is, after all, a court case and court cases are decided not by emotional reactions, but by reference to legal precedents. So what is the legal issue at stake and under dispute?

Here are the facts of the case. A 10 year old boy named Jeffrey Curley was tortured and murdered by two men, Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari. The men were caught, tried, convicted and sentenced. Furthermore, the parents of the victim filed a civil lawsuit against the two men and won a $200 million verdict, which they will surely never collect. But then the parents went a step further by suing NAMBLA, an organization that advocates that the age-of-consent laws be changed to allow sexual relations between adult men and juvenile boys. Jaynes was a member of NAMBLA and the police found that he had 8 issues of their publication in his home and had accessed their website at the Boston Public Library.

The legal argument that the parents of the victim are making is that NAMBLA's publications fostered an atmosphere that caused the crime to take place. That's right - they do not allege that there was anything that specifically instructed Jaynes to rape and kill a child, that either their publications or their website provided any material support for the crime, or even that it advocated committing such a crime, only that the "totality of the child sex environment" advocated by NAMBLA somehow caused this to happen. In fact, the defendants filed a motion early on in the case asking that the plaintiffs spell out specifically what statements or expressions in either the group's publications or website could reasonably be construed as causing Jaynes to commit this crime. The amended complaint did not do so, referring instead only to the general "climate" fostered by NAMBLA. And herein lies the crux of the case.

It's not illegal to advocate a change in the laws, and nowhere in their complaint do the plaintiffs point to any statement made in any NAMBLA publication that urges that one violate the laws in place currently. And in most cases, it's not even illegal to advocate breaking the law. Multiple court rulings have established that only if the advocacy carries a "clear and present danger" of an "imminent breach of the peace" can speech that advocates criminal behavior be censored and punished by law. This is known as the Brandenberg test because of the Supreme Court case it stems from, and the standard has been upheld several times by the Court, as recently as 2000. But the question at stake here is not so much whether the government can censor such speech, but whether the person or organization that advocates a change in the laws should be held responsible for the actions of someone who reads their material and thereafter breaks those laws.

Let's think about the ramifications of this precedent if the plaintiff wins. There have been numerous cases of anti-abortion advocates killing abortion doctors. One such activist was recently put to death in Florida for committing murder. Under the precedent that would be given if the plaintiffs win in the NAMBLA case, anti-abortion groups whose literature such a murderer had read, or whose website they visited, could be sued and held responsible for the actions of the individual who pulled the trigger. After all, they advocate a change in the laws and they "foster an atmosphere" in which abortion doctors are viewed as murderers who must be stopped. Let's say a law is passed banning the ownership of automatic weapons. The NRA would surely oppose such a law and would advocate that the law be changed in their publications and on their website. Could the parents of a victim of a murder by such a weapon blame the NRA on the same grounds as NAMBLA is being sued? Of course they could. The NRA would be "fostering a climate of lawlessness" by claiming that the gun laws are unjust and illegitimate.

Once we establish the legal principle that groups which advocate changing the laws can be held responsible for the actions of those who break the laws, the sky is the limit for such lawsuits. What is now legal advocacy aimed at changing the laws would be suppressed by the need to avoid civil damages. And the principle of individual responsibility would be undermined in America yet again. The responsibility for the murder of Jeffrey Curley lies with the two men who committed the act and those men have been tried and convicted - and frankly, if someone in prison takes a shiv to one or both of them, I don't think any of us will lose any sleep over it. But we cannot let our justifiable outrage at this horrible crime allow us to set a precedent that could destroy what is now legal and protected political advocacy in America. We cannot allow that emotional reaction to prompt us to destroy a bedrock principle of our legal system, the notion that it is actions that are punishable, not words no matter how repulsive they may be.

The ACLU is, in my view, correct to take this case. They are not defending the right of men to rape and kill little boys, the men were duly convicted of crimes and the laws that they were convicted under are not at issue. They are not defending the message that NAMBLA puts out, anymore than the Jewish ACLU attorney David Goldberger was defending the anti-semitic message that the Nazis were advocating when he took their case and defended their right to assemble and speak their views, even if those views are repulsive to virtually everyone. It may well be that the ACLU will suffer financially because of this highly controversial case, as they did when they lost 30% of their membership after taking the Nazi case in Skokie. But if they do, it will be a result of the triumph of emotional demagoguery over sober thinking. And that will hurt us all far more than most people can currently envision.

http://www.stcynic.com/blog/archives...clu_and_th.php

[j2k4]

Wrong, and (!) wrong again.

Besides which, if I had or took the time to lay out my entire argument in one post, it would resemble those no one can be fussed to read, for fear of it's length.

One must keep some powder dry, after all.

Leaving out something that is against the law is spin.

If I murder someone in the privacy of my home, it harms another and the act itself is against the law.

If you made reasonable arguments they would simply make sense and have teeth.

The only posts that many aren't fussed to read are your CAP posts.

The fact is your #3 is transparently spurious and boring.

I will pause here only long enough to note your post omits any mention of the legal status of the person you "murder" in your home.

Is he/she by any chance an intruder?

The rest of your post is pish.

[j2k4]

This is a more eloquent version of what I am trying to get across

The ACLU and the NAMBLA Case

Much has been made of the fact that the Massachusetts chapter of the ACLU has taken on a case defending NAMBLA, the North American Man-Boy Love Association, in a civil lawsuit arising from the kidnapping and killing of a 10 year old boy. There is no more controversial or emotionally-charged issue than this. NAMBLA is universally, and justifiably, viewed as a vile organization that advocates something that nearly everyone despises in the strongest possible terms. Unfortunately, that makes it a perfect target for demagoguery and superficial demonizing, and that is just what we have seen. One group has even begun a website called the "ACLU NAMBLA Rage Page" where people can register their revulsion. Bill O'Reilly has ranted against the ACLU for taking the case, as has virtually everyone on the right in America, and many people claim outright that the ACLU is fighting for the right to rape children. But in the midst of this understandably emotional outpouring, something has been lost - the legal issue. This is, after all, a court case and court cases are decided not by emotional reactions, but by reference to legal precedents. So what is the legal issue at stake and under dispute?

Here are the facts of the case. A 10 year old boy named Jeffrey Curley was tortured and murdered by two men, Charles Jaynes and Salvatore Sicari. The men were caught, tried, convicted and sentenced. Furthermore, the parents of the victim filed a civil lawsuit against the two men and won a $200 million verdict, which they will surely never collect. But then the parents went a step further by suing NAMBLA, an organization that advocates that the age-of-consent laws be changed to allow sexual relations between adult men and juvenile boys. Jaynes was a member of NAMBLA and the police found that he had 8 issues of their publication in his home and had accessed their website at the Boston Public Library.

The legal argument that the parents of the victim are making is that NAMBLA's publications fostered an atmosphere that caused the crime to take place. That's right - they do not allege that there was anything that specifically instructed Jaynes to rape and kill a child, that either their publications or their website provided any material support for the crime, or even that it advocated committing such a crime, only that the "totality of the child sex environment" advocated by NAMBLA somehow caused this to happen. In fact, the defendants filed a motion early on in the case asking that the plaintiffs spell out specifically what statements or expressions in either the group's publications or website could reasonably be construed as causing Jaynes to commit this crime. The amended complaint did not do so, referring instead only to the general "climate" fostered by NAMBLA. And herein lies the crux of the case.

It's not illegal to advocate a change in the laws, and nowhere in their complaint do the plaintiffs point to any statement made in any NAMBLA publication that urges that one violate the laws in place currently. And in most cases, it's not even illegal to advocate breaking the law. Multiple court rulings have established that only if the advocacy carries a "clear and present danger" of an "imminent breach of the peace" can speech that advocates criminal behavior be censored and punished by law. This is known as the Brandenberg test because of the Supreme Court case it stems from, and the standard has been upheld several times by the Court, as recently as 2000. But the question at stake here is not so much whether the government can censor such speech, but whether the person or organization that advocates a change in the laws should be held responsible for the actions of someone who reads their material and thereafter breaks those laws.

Let's think about the ramifications of this precedent if the plaintiff wins. There have been numerous cases of anti-abortion advocates killing abortion doctors. One such activist was recently put to death in Florida for committing murder. Under the precedent that would be given if the plaintiffs win in the NAMBLA case, anti-abortion groups whose literature such a murderer had read, or whose website they visited, could be sued and held responsible for the actions of the individual who pulled the trigger. After all, they advocate a change in the laws and they "foster an atmosphere" in which abortion doctors are viewed as murderers who must be stopped. Let's say a law is passed banning the ownership of automatic weapons. The NRA would surely oppose such a law and would advocate that the law be changed in their publications and on their website. Could the parents of a victim of a murder by such a weapon blame the NRA on the same grounds as NAMBLA is being sued? Of course they could. The NRA would be "fostering a climate of lawlessness" by claiming that the gun laws are unjust and illegitimate.

Once we establish the legal principle that groups which advocate changing the laws can be held responsible for the actions of those who break the laws, the sky is the limit for such lawsuits. What is now legal advocacy aimed at changing the laws would be suppressed by the need to avoid civil damages. And the principle of individual responsibility would be undermined in America yet again. The responsibility for the murder of Jeffrey Curley lies with the two men who committed the act and those men have been tried and convicted - and frankly, if someone in prison takes a shiv to one or both of them, I don't think any of us will lose any sleep over it. But we cannot let our justifiable outrage at this horrible crime allow us to set a precedent that could destroy what is now legal and protected political advocacy in America. We cannot allow that emotional reaction to prompt us to destroy a bedrock principle of our legal system, the notion that it is actions that are punishable, not words no matter how repulsive they may be.

The ACLU is, in my view, correct to take this case. They are not defending the right of men to rape and kill little boys, the men were duly convicted of crimes and the laws that they were convicted under are not at issue. They are not defending the message that NAMBLA puts out, anymore than the Jewish ACLU attorney David Goldberger was defending the anti-semitic message that the Nazis were advocating when he took their case and defended their right to assemble and speak their views, even if those views are repulsive to virtually everyone. It may well be that the ACLU will suffer financially because of this highly controversial case, as they did when they lost 30% of their membership after taking the Nazi case in Skokie. But if they do, it will be a result of the triumph of emotional demagoguery over sober thinking. And that will hurt us all far more than most people can currently envision.

http://www.stcynic.com/blog/archives...clu_and_th.php

Your debatably eloquent C & P aside, my point vis a vis the ACLU is, how does the membership of NAMBLA warrant ACLU services, when the victims of pedophilia do not?

Again, I hark back to my earlier mention pf the ACLU's imperative (which originally mirrored those of other such organizations), which does not seek currently to defend any but the stance of the pedophile, as opposed to the (perhaps) underfinanced efforts of the victim of the pedophile, whose rights have most surely also have been violated.

Have you any idea what is the acronym of whatever group has been formed to defend the victims of pedophilia, or perhaps how much they have reaped from that crowd of liberals who find themselves inclined to donate to minority and/or underfinanced legal causes?

Or has this particular cause been overlooked by the ACLU?

[vidcc]

Your debatably eloquent C & P aside, my point vis a vis the ACLU is, how does the membership of NAMBLA warrant ACLU services, when the victims of pedophilia do not?

This is an argument based on emotion, not law. the victim of the paedopile are given the services of the prosecuctor. Had the prosecutor tried to claim that the victim has no rights and refused the victim due process then the aclu will step in. Can you give me one example where the ACLU has defended a paedophiles right to molest a child, in a child molestation case or in policy? There are none. They have not and do not support child molestation. What they defend is free speech and the bill of rights.

Again, I hark back to my earlier mention pf the ACLU's imperative (which originally mirrored those of other such organizations), which does not seek currently to defend any but the stance of the pedophile, as opposed to the (perhaps) underfinanced efforts of the victim of the pedophile, whose rights have most surely also have been violated.
Again you are making emotion over laws, Can you give me an example where anyone has had their free speech rights violated by being prevented from condeming Nambla?
If you are trying to make the ACLU seem like only wanting to defend unpopular speech and scum could you give me an example of popular speech that has been prevented (against the bill of rights) and if so could you show me where the ACLU refused to take up the case.
Have you any idea what is the acronym of whatever group has been formed to defend the victims of pedophilia, or perhaps how much they have reaped from that crowd of liberals who find themselves inclined to donate to minority and/or underfinanced legal causes?

Or has this particular cause been overlooked by the ACLU?

Are you suggesting the Aclu formed just to defend paedophiles?
I think you will find that Accronym is the D.O.J. .... And there are probably many support groups and charitites out there that deal with the victims and I would guess that liberals, some may be ACLU members, donate plenty to them. The ACLU takes up cases where the bill of rights has been violated. It doesn't have to take up cases where it is not violated. they are defenders of civil rights, not a criminal prosecution group. As I said if the DOJ refused to take up a victim of padophilia case without due process then the ACLU would go after the prosecutor because then the victims rights would have been violated. They would gladly want a day when they could pack up.

[Rat Faced]

2. Liberals are for a "no exceptions" rights agenda, that is to say, if a law was written in such a way as to target pedophiles, liberals would agitate for a judicial "remedy" on the extreme off-chance a non-pedophile suffered a mis-step, rather than address this post-action, as the system allows.

Better to leave pedophiles on the street than mistakenly question the integrity of an individual, right?

Such blind opposition has the effect of coddling pedophiles.

Fact.

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me

[Busyman™]

Leaving out something that is against the law is spin.

If I murder someone in the privacy of my home, it harms another and the act itself is against the law.

If you made reasonable arguments they would simply make sense and have teeth.

The only posts that many aren't fussed to read are your CAP posts.

The fact is your #3 is transparently spurious and boring.

I will pause here only long enough to note your post omits any mention of the legal status of the person you "murder" in your home.

Is he/she by any chance an intruder?

The rest of your post is pish.

Of course you think your CAP posts are gold laden works of art.

I didn't go into what the legal status of that person. Since I said murder, it's murder, not self defense.

If a person such as yourself shoots a old lady that wanders into your home in the back that's on you.....that must be self-defense.

As an aside, we agree on capping someone illegally entering our home. We differ on why we are capping them. I want to protect self and family. You just want to shoot them 'cause they illegally entered.

[vidcc]

Seems the Aclu is now defending Phelps...who would have thought it...the obviously liberal agenda infected ACLU defending a right wing biggots freedom of religion and speech .

Of course the right wingers objecting to phelps now didn't have a problem with their vile hate tactics when they were doing it at funerals of homosexuals for most of the last two decades... then it was religious freedom and free speech all the way.

[j2k4]

Seems the Aclu is now defending Phelps...who would have thought it...the obviously liberal agenda infected ACLU defending a right wing biggots freedom of religion and speech .

Contrary to your proffer, such does not reflect ill upon any but the ACLU.

BTW-

What is a "biggot"?

Of course the right wingers objecting to phelps now didn't have a problem with their vile hate tactics when they were doing it at funerals of homosexuals for most of the last two decades... then it was religious freedom and free speech all the way.

As a true conservative, naturally I totally missed these activities you speak of.

As someone who can speak knowledgeably, I wonder if you can tell me-was the ACLU compelled to backstop these "vile hate tactics" under the guise of religious freedom and free speech"?

Ah-didn't think so...they practice politics, too, don't they?

[vidcc]

Contrary to your proffer, such does not reflect ill upon any but the ACLU.

Again it seems that it is impossible to look past the plaintiff to realise free speech needs to be defended.

As a true conservative, naturally I totally missed these activities you speak of.

Perhaps that would be because protesting at the funeral of a homosexual, shouting at the parents that their son/daughter will be burning in hell and that aids is gods punishment for their sin doesn't spark outrage on the news or commentary outlets you listen to or read.... But to be fair they got little press from most of the main stream media

As someone who can speak knowledgeably, I wonder if you can tell me-was the ACLU compelled to backstop these "vile hate tactics" under the guise of religious freedom and free speech"?

Ah-didn't think so...they practice politics, too, don't they?

The ACLU have been condemning this groups message for years


Given unmistakable wording and the nature of the message how could it not be "religious free speech"........ But to answer your question on the ACLU's motives........the guise is the first amendment..... [repeat]Again it seems that it is impossible to look past the plaintiff to realise free speech needs to be defended.[repeat/]

Why is it that laws are only just being presented to curtail these hatemongering freaks when they have been at it for the best part of two decades basically unchallenged?

But just think, if the aclu fails then we can ban protests outside abortion clinics, we can stop religious groups attending gay rallies and handing out their literature, we can ban door to door evangalism. Government could ban any kind of protest against their policies...wouldn't that be wonderful, a government that couldn't be protested..........

[j2k4]

But just think, if the aclu fails then we can ban protests outside abortion clinics, we can stop religious groups attending gay rallies and handing out their literature, we can ban door to door evangalism. Government could ban any kind of protest against their policies...wouldn't that be wonderful, a government that couldn't be protested..........

And, wonder of wonders, this does not happen...

Curious, eh?

What with the ACLU on every corner (just like Starbucks), but only in liberal neighborhoods (unlike Starbucks).

The ACLU picks it's spots.

Fact.