It seems fitting to begin today in a fairy tale mode and so: Once upon a time the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) was the spokesman for the little people being oppressed by government.
Yes, the organization came into being in the wake of World War I to protect the rights of radicals (mostly socialists) who were being targeted by our federal government, which was not keen on repeating the Russian Revolution here. Ostensibly the ACLU would look out for others, too.
But the ACLU always has tended to the political left, never meeting a fringe cause it was not willing to champion as long as it was ideologically in the Stalin-Mao-Marx range of the spectrum.
Just to spice things up, and keep up the illusion of fairness, the group occasionally comes down on the side of some person or group on the political right. Think of these as exceptions that prove the rule.
That seemed to have happened last Friday when an ACLU spokesman warned that suspending President Trump’s social media access illustrated “unchecked power” by the big tech firms who increasingly are the un-elected rulers of this nation.
On that much, the ACLU was correct.
It’s not that the ACLU hierarchy gives a rat’s patoot about Trump’s rights, as they continue to confirm by calling for his immediate impeachment on their web site even as I type this. But, if one read on in the statement, Trump was used as the stalking horse because the real ACLU fear was such suspension would be applied to people on the far left – perhaps Antifa or Black Lives Matter.
I know, I know, that’s about as likely as Nancy Pelosi going a week without an injection of Botox or overpriced designer ice cream.
But the ACLU is collectively smart enough to realize the prevailing sentiment. If ugly mobs show up at the doors of the likes of Dorsey or Zuckerberg, they might alter their draconian policies at Twitter and Facebook, respectively.
If in the future, the political mood in the country swings from left back to the conservative right, it’s not impossible that these guys, or their successors, would bend their biases the other way in a pragmatic concession to making further billions and controlling public discourse.
It’s all reminiscent of the confessional poem of a former Lutheran pastor in Germany, lamenting that he and others had done nothing to stop the rise of Nazism. The poem recounts failing to say something when they came for socialists, trade unionists, Jews, because the writer was none of those.
It ends with this lament: “Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Rational adults, whether they support Trump or not, ought to be horrified at what is taking place in this country.
The one-sided nature of actions is numbingly obvious.
Social media limits voices with which those in charge of the outlets do not agree. Trump is shut down, but as noted in a zerohedge.com article by Jonathan Turley (Constitutional law professor and DEMOCRAT!) Rep. Maxine Waters is free to urge people to confront Republicans in restaurants, Rep. Ayanna Pressley faces no censorship for saying during leftist protests “there needs to be more unrest in the streets” or incoming VP (AKA president in waiting) Kamala Harris said while a Senator “protestors should not let up.”
Harris was even busy trying to raise bail to get violent left-wing protesters back on the streets to repeat their actions.
Social media also acts in concert when silenced voices seek upstart outlets to express themselves, witness the shutdown of Parler.
Power-drunk Democrats want to overturn the Constitution to exact political revenge by trying yet again to impeach President Trump, even though it would seem impossible to get a confirmation of that in the Senate before his term expires and private citizens cannot be impeached.
If you are counting on our court system to stem this tide toward mob rule, think again. I’m sure the judges at all levels will come down hard – correctly – on the people who breached the Capitol, even as they incorrectly allow left-wing types to get away with autonomous zones being put up in major cities.
The purveyors of such autonomous zones would have greater difficulty getting away with that in rural precincts, where law enforcement would be more likely to act and even if it didn’t, vigilantes likely would.
The latest Portland, Oregon, example ended up with the protesters and lawbreakers getting an apology from the city’s weak-kneed mayor and a promise to honor the demands of the protesters.
Had there been charges filed, the ACLU would have rushed to defend, while remaining silent and, by inference, tone deaf, to the real threat to this country’s freedoms.
Sam Ross Jr's site 