All of us 2nd Amendment types have it all wrong. We won't be rising up to remove a tyrannical government -- our own ****ing citizens will willing give away those freedoms without a fight for:
1. Security. If you have nothing to hide...
2. Your rights end where my feelings begin.
3. Dammit, it's the FLAG! (I don't recall swearing during my enlistment that "I will support and defend the
flag of the United States against all enemies...)
etc.
Obviously, won't just be the LIBEURLS that send us down the river into being subjects of the all encompassing corporate Nanny State
, though they will certainly pitch in on the freedoms they find particularly disturbing.
Phelps is a tool of the highest order. But, the pissy thing of it is, is that if we want to live with any individual freedom what-so-ever we have to tolerate tools like Phelps. We have to accept that 3-4 tools will burn a flag each year without any common sense level of justification to go with that act. We have to accept that, on occasion, an enemy may take advantage of our general level of openness and freedom to commit terrorist acts. The alternative is the iron clad security and "proper thought" you find in a Soviet Union or Nazi Germany. And don't forget that the majority of the citizens in both generally supported the regimes. Hell, the Germans couldn't drop the Wiemar Republic fast enough to get back to a new Kaiser (papa Adolph) who put the commies in their place, cleaned up the streets of hooligans and rabble rousers, got rid of that degenerate culture and returned Germany to solid "family values."
I don't even want a taste of that "security" myself, therefore I tolerate Phelps. I don't even want the security of an "American Singapore."
I generally side 100 percent with what the ACLU supports. Even NAMBLA. They have a 100 percent right to free speech even if it is disgusting. However, if a NAMBLA follower acts on that speech then they have a 100 percent right to life in prison.
Just like religionists have a 100 percent right to brainwash their children. Of course, I'm ONLY talking about the "bad" religions like the Jeffs Clan, or the "Jihad means Love" types, or the Hollywierd Scientology scene. A lot of people might not agree with their ability to totally **** up their children from an early age on, but where do you draw the line? Currently, with a group like the Jeffs we draw it at 16 year old child brides in arranged polygamous marriages to older men by the whims of Jeffs. However, are the Baptists and Protestants cultists as well? (Hell, just ask a hardcore follower of one about the other and see what the answer is 
) No dancing or drinking on one side, and smoking purses and marching orders from the supreme (human) leader in Rome on the other... A slippery slope, I say.
My biggest ***** with the ACLU, and it's not a small one, is that they clearly see some rights as more important than others. The ACLU's red-headed-stepchild is, of course, the 2nd Amendment.
However, you take what you can get, and for now there is no rights organization that seems to have the focus and resources to stand up for the Bill of Rights as fully as the ACLU, regardless of who they support in the process (its the right, not the content of the expression) or don't support (firearm owners). Regardless of who founded the organization and for what purposes way back when. Case by case I can't really disagree with any position I have read so far in recent years (aside fro their views on the 2nd). FWIW, I also think the NRA does a piss poor job of supporting the 2nd, but I joined anyway for much the same reason. The Illinois Rifle Association, which I also joined, is borderline incompetent in a battleground state, but again, what's the alternative today? Maybe I can become involved moving forward, if it's not just some insider's downstate hunter's/trapshooter's club. You take what you can get.
Charon
