ACLU Defends Rent Control and Property Seizures, Defining Them as Civil Liberties

There are few policies more counterproductive and stupid than rent control

The ACLU claims to exist to protect the civil liberties and constitutional rights of all Americans, but it's really just an unprincipled left-wing lobbying group. Recently, the ACLU of Southern California opposed Proposition 98, a California initiative that would have reinforced state constitutional protections against seizures of private property, by preventing private property from being taken for commercial development, and ending rent control. The ACLU attacked Prop. 98 for seeking to "eliminate rent control," and "restricting the government's power." Imagine that! Restricting the government's power! That's what most civil liberties guarantees do, after all: restrict government power. But the American Civil Liberties Union doesn't have much to do with civil liberties, anymore, unless the beneficiaries are left-wing constituencies, like alleged terrorists.

While the ACLU was busy claiming that banning rent control is somehow a threat to civil liberties, it was also fabricating many new rights out of thin air: an alleged "right" to make sexual advances and have sex in public restrooms; an alleged "right" for swastika-wearing neo-Nazis to force restaurants like the Alpine Village Inn to serve them; an alleged "right" for illegal alien employees to demand that their citizen co-workers not say derogatory things about them, even outside their presence; and an alleged "right" for one Massachusetts man to perform oral sex on another man while on a public stage.

The ACLU in California is a "vigorous proponent of hate speech regulations," and its Massachusetts chapter supports campus speech codes, ignoring that pesky First Amendment (which was, after all, written by dead white males - the ACLU is a big supporter of racial quotas, unsuccessfully arguing in Coalition for Economic Equity v. Wilson (1997), that minorities have a constitutional right to racial preferences that overrides state constitutional equal-protection provisions banning all racial discrimination). A prominent ACLU lawyer in Massachusetts argued that rape law should be redefined so that mere consent to sex is not enough, claiming that sex should only be allowed after express, explicit permission of the sort that precedes a medical operation.

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Chesterton & Lewis warn against tyranny

G. K. Chesterton's helpful assessment of fundamental liberty. By his measure, our liberty is indeed threatened.

"The free man owns himself. He can damage himself with either eating or drinking; he can ruin himself with gambling. If he does he is certainly a damn fool, and he might possibly be a damned soul; but if he may not, he is not a free man any more than a dog." - Broadcast talk 6-11-35

Jay at STACLU has a great quote on a similar theme:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences." -C.S. Lewis"

Two Christ-professing Englishmen warning us from the early 20th Century, that to give up our freedom "for our own good," is not freedom. It is acquiescing to tyranny with thumb in the mouth, iPod buds in the ear and the tv set on an endless loop of Sex and the City reruns.

More here

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ELSEWHERE

Democrats losing control of women voters: "The woman who shouted "McCain in '08" at the Democratic rules committee was speaking for a multitude. After mounting for months, female anger over the choreographed dumping on Hillary Clinton and her supporters has exploded - and party loyalty be damned. That the women are beginning to have a good time is an especially bad sign for Barack Obama's campaign. "Obama will NOT get my vote, and one step more," Ellen Thorp, a 59-year-old flight attendant from Houston told me. "I have been a Democrat for 38 years. As of today, I am registering as an independent. Yee Haw!"

Ethnic cleansing of Christians in Gaza picks up steam : "On Saturday, May 31, terrorists attacked the guards at the Al Manara school in Gaza, stole a vehicle belonging to the Baptist Holy Book Society, which operates the school, and threatened the society's director. This is just the latest in a series of attacks on Christians and their institutions (and other 'instruments of western culture') in Gaza".

Temple site "Islamic": "Jerusalem and the Temple Mount belong to the Muslims and any Israeli action that "offends" the Mount will be answered by 1.5 billion Muslims, declared the chief of staff for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. "Jerusalem is Muslim. The blessed Al Aqsa mosque and Harem Al Sharif (Temple Mount) is 100 percent Muslim. The Israelis are playing with fire when they threaten Al Aqsa with digging that is taking place," said Abbas' chief of staff Rafiq Al Husseini. The Temple Mount is Judaism's holiest site."

Democrats for McCain!: "We've seen poll after poll telling us that Hillary's supporters would vote for John McCain, and not Obama, if she doesn't get the nomination. Well, that prediction is already starting to come true.... What's much more fun to see happen is how the GOP Convention office is getting calls from Hillary supporters asking how they can help with his campaign."

For more postings from me, see OBAMA WATCH, TONGUE-TIED, EDUCATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL, GREENIE WATCH, POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH, GUN WATCH, SOCIALIZED MEDICINE, FOOD & HEALTH SKEPTIC, AUSTRALIAN POLITICS, IMMIGRATION WATCH INTERNATIONAL and EYE ON BRITAIN.

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The Big Lie of the late 20th century was that Nazism was Rightist. It was in fact typical of the Leftism of its day. It was only to the Right of Stalin's Communism. The very word "Nazi" is a German abbreviation for "National Socialist" (Nationalsozialist) and the full name of Hitler's political party (translated) was "The National Socialist German Workers' Party" (In German: Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei)

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