In the late 1970s, Skokie, Illinois was home to tens of thousands of Jews, many of whom were Holocaust survivors. It was then that the National Socialist Party of America, a self-proclaimed Nazi, planned a march against the Nazis.
Shockingly, the American Civil Liberties Union came to the defense of these Nazis and their First Amendment rights.
“Even card-carrying ACLU members resigned en masse, saying, 'We support free speech, but this has gone too far,'” said Nadine Strossen, former ACLU president. James Pross At “Zero Hour,” he added, “the ACLU lost 15% of its membership.”
“Although the case lost in the court of public opinion, including ACLU member states, it had an easy victory in court thanks to the bedrock principle of viewpoint neutrality, which means that the government could argue that the viewpoint is abhorrent. “You can never punish speech just because it's disgusting,” Strossen continued.
The ACLU even defended the “Unite the Right” demonstrations in Charlottesville in 2017 because there was no evidence that violence was planned. However, while the ACLU has historically championed free speech, we have seen some changes recently.
“I'm going to re-acknowledge the change that I've acknowledged before: generational change,” Strossen said. “Younger generations within all of these institutions that have traditionally supported free speech, academia, journalism, publishing, the ACLU's library work, etc., all indications, including research, that as they get younger, the classic It shows that support for the value of free speech is waning.”
“Even in the legal profession, we can see that the decline in support for classical liberal free speech values could someday also impact the judiciary,” she added.
Poulos believes that what is placed at the feet of the younger generation must be seriously protected.
“I think it's becoming increasingly clear that we need to protect these things. We need a broad coalition to protect these things. If we don't, it's no longer America.” he says.
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