In my latest reading of What's a Nice Republican Girl Like Me Doing in the ACLU?
(copyright 1997), Sheila Suess Kennedy explains why she differs from
the national American Civil Liberties Union in her opposition to
discriminatory government-sponsored affirmative action programs, and she
also defends public schools and criticizes government-sponsored
vouchers for children to attend private schools.
What I want to
use as my starting-point in this post, however, is something that
Kennedy says on page 159, as she discusses a mutually-respectful
correspondence that she had with a pro-life woman: "Subsequent
correspondence has revealed a common concern for the free speech rights
of abortion protesters. We both worry that government is using RICO
laws to stifle dissent."
Earlier in the book, on page 15, she
mentions other common-ground that the ACLU has found with groups that
many would characterize as right-wing. She refers to common-ground
between the ACLU and the libertarian Cato Institute on the drug war, and
between the ACLU and the National Rifle Association "on issues stemming
from the 1993 tragedy in Waco."
I admire the integrity of the
ACLU: it has principles, and it does not care if those principles put it
on what people would label as the left-side of the political spectrum,
or the right-wing side. It just stands up for people's rights! Some
right-wingers have told me that the ACLU is pretty selective about what
rights it defends, however, for the ACLU does not exactly take on gun
control laws, which a number of right-wingers believe are in violation
of the Second Amendment. You can see here
that the ACLU regards the right to keep and bear arms as a collective
right, not an individual right. I can see some of the ACLU's point, for
the Amendment does mention a militia. But I wonder why a
collective right would be placed inside of a document (namely, the Bill
of Rights) that primarily concerns protecting the rights of the
individual from government infringement. In any case, whatever the
merit of its stance on the Second Amendment, I appreciate the ACLU's
integrity on the other rights in the Bill of Rights, as it defends
left-wingers and right-wingers, the mainstream and the extreme.
(UPDATE: Regarding Kennedy's views on gun control, on pages 188-189, she
appears to be critical of the government confiscating guns to reduce
crime and violence. Yet, in her post here, she disapproves of a measure allowing people to carry guns into the workplace.)
I'd
also like to mention that Kennedy on page 128 criticizes Congress for
exempting itself from the laws that it passes. This was an issue in the
1990's, for, in 1995, the U.S. Congress passed the Congressional Accountability Act,
which applied to the U.S. Congress a number of federal laws from which
it had exempted itself. This law was passed soon after Republicans
gained majorities in the U.S. Senate and the U.S. House of
Representatives, for the first time in over three decades. It was a
time in which many anticipated reform, as Republicans in the 1994
elections had ousted long-time career politicians, and fresh blood was
coming into the chambers of Congress. Of course, the outcome of the
Republican triumph was not entirely positive, for the Republican
Congress had its share of scandals. But I remember with nostalgia the
fresh, innocent Republican optimism that I had right after the
Republicans took control of Congress in 1994.