Yeah, but the First Amendment didn't stop McCain/Feingold's CFR, even after review by the Supreme Court.
Posted on 06/05/2005 8:05:24 PM PDT by huac
"...the American Civil Liberties Union today endorsed a new hate crimes bill introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI)...The Conyers measure, which includes protections against hate crimes committed on the bases of gender identity and sexual orientation, also includes an explicit ban on the use of speech or association to prove criminal activity, unless it specifically relates to the crime..."This carefully crafted measure shows that you can prosecute hate crimes without attacking freedom of expression," ..."Federal legislation addressing hate crimes is necessary because state and local law enforcement officers sometimes do not act because of either inadequate resources or their own bias against the victim,"..."
(Excerpt) Read more at aclu.org ...
True... there's always room for a little 5th-column type subversion.
certiorari to the united states court of appeals for the fourth circuit
No. 99-5. Argued January 11, 2000--Decided May 15, 20001
(...) The Commerce Clause does not provide Congress with authority to enact §13981's federal civil remedy. A congressional enactment will be invalidated only upon a plain showing that Congress has exceeded its constitutional bounds. See United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549, 568, 577-578. Petitioners assert that §13981 can be sustained under Congress' commerce power as a regulation of activity that substantially affects interstate commerce. The proper framework for analyzing such a claim is provided by the principles the Court set out in Lopez. First, in Lopez, the noneconomic, criminal nature of possessing a firearm in a school zone was central to the Court's conclusion that Congress lacks authority to regulate such possession. Similarly, gender-motivated crimes of violence are not, in any sense, economic activity. Second, like the statute at issue in Lopez, §13981 contains no jurisdictional element establishing that the federal cause of action is in pursuance of Congress' regulation of interstate commerce. Although Lopez makes clear that such a jurisdictional element would lend support to the argument that §13981 is sufficiently tied to interstate commerce to come within Congress' authority, Congress elected to cast §13981's remedy over a wider, and more purely intrastate, body of violent crime. Third, although §13981, unlike the Lopez statute, is supported by numerous findings regarding the serious impact of gender-motivated violence on victims and their families, these findings are substantially weakened by the fact that they rely on reasoning that this Court has rejected, namely a but-for causal chain from the initial occurrence of violent crime to every attenuated effect upon interstate commerce. If accepted, this reasoning would allow Congress to regulate any crime whose nationwide, aggregated impact has substantial effects on employment, production, transit, or consumption. Moreover, such reasoning will not limit Congress to regulating violence, but may be applied equally as well to family law and other areas of state regulation since the aggregate effect of marriage, divorce, and childrearing on the national economy is undoubtedly significant. The Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local, and there is no better example of the police power, which the Founders undeniably left reposed in the States and denied the central government, than the suppression of violent crime and vindication of its victims. Congress therefore may not regulate noneconomic, violent criminal conduct based solely on the conduct's aggregate effect on interstate commerce. Pp. 7-19. (...)
"...Somebody 'splain to me, exactly, the difference between a 'regular' crime and a 'hate' crime..."
Orwellianingly simple, my friend. Four legs good, two legs bad. ACLU/left protected class good, wrong color or less than transgendered conservative BAD!
It's natural to be drawn to and take care of your own. That's why I come to FR. That's why the ACLU fights for the rights of NAMBLA members to brutally sodomize little boys.
Yup.
The ACLU ought to change it's name to NABB - the National Association of Butt Bandits.
"...the National Association of Butt Bandits."
Apropos. By the way, I saw you on the PepsiCo thread. I got the impression that many people were not aware of it (the Nooyi incident). I've been off FR for awhile, but frequented the blogs, where it was big. Did it not catch fire on FR?
Nope. Very little was said about it here.
LOL and the tag line ...LOL again!
What's the "Nooyi incident" I won't acknowledge tonight as I gotta hit the rack. Thanks in advance. Night all!
ACLU PING
Letter to the Editors, Washington Times, circa fall, 1998:
In the waning hours of the 105th Congress, quiet efforts to pass controversial legislation are under way.
The Hate Crimes Prevention Act... cites violence based on sexual orientation as a Hate Crime.
Hate Crimes have commonly been racially motivated. Only in Canada has sexual orientation been included in anti-hate and human rights legislation. The Canadian law does not focus exclusively on physical violence-- it includes all forms of communication as well.
...As a Canadian living in the United States, I fear for your freedom, mainly because you take it for granted.
If my words were published in a Canadian newspaper... I would be charged with inciting hate under the criminal code.
Freedom of speech no longer exists in Canada-- I could not state that AIDS is largely found within the homosexual community, nor quote statistics to back up my assertion.
My opinion would make me a criminal. Since "tolerance" has been redefined... only Political Correctness is tolerated...
The Hate Crimes Prevention Act is a signifigant foot in the door for homosexual rights lobbyists-- it validates the entire... movement as an endangered group in need of special legislative protection.
Violence against any person is already illegal, no matter what the motive.
I find it offensive that violence is noteworthy only when the victim ( is)... a member of some political action group.
Susan Mayhew
Herndon, Virginia
It is my belief that there is a group of ideas so toxic that I label them "poison ideas"- once you swallow them, their convoluted internal logic makes you so sick that you can no longer reason your way out of the semantic box they trap you in.
"Hate Crimes" is one of those- it sounds like an idea any decent person would support, but its real purpose is to squelch and silence opposition.
PING!
Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) - http://www.alliancedefensefund.org
Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) - http://www.thomasmore.org
American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) - http://www.aclj.org
The Rutherford Institute - http://www.rutherford.org/
Stop the ACLU Coalition - http://www.stoptheaclu.org
Here are a few examples of how two of those organizations are fighting back:
ADF Contacts Over 3,600 School Districts Over Attempts To Censor Christmas
ADF: 700 lawyers ready to fight ACLU lawsuits
ADF: Pentagons' Warning About Boyscouts Is Absurd
Thomas More Law Center: Town of Palm Beach Pays $50,000 In Attorney Fees Apologizes To Women In Nativity Lawsuit
Additional information:
The ACLU must be destroyed: Joseph Farah supports Boy Scouts, urges Americans to fight back
Citizens mobilized to stop ACLU (seeks to consign group to 'ash heap of history')
ACLU fulfilling communist agenda
Revealing FACTS on the ACLU from its own writings
See how YOUR Senator or Representative ranks with the ACLU
This group just started on December 3, 2004 and are looking for new members to their yahoo group
My Personal Anti-ACLU Blog (Check it out and leave a comment!)
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
The Secular Taliban strikes again.......notice that the bill only applies to Christian thoughts, beliefs and speech.
They're not looking to silence differing points of view...............thay want only to trample on-- and silence---the Christian point of view.
I wish these Christian-haters would get professional help for their self-esteem problems instead of beating up on Christians all the time.
It's amazing (but not unexpected) that these people think they can get away with piling on the hate and the vitriol....as if Christians are gonna stand by and do
nothing.
The ACLU Christian-haters are tolerated only through Christians' patience and forebearance. They are in for a rude awakening.
In 1976, Congress passed the Civil Rights Attorneys Fee Awards Act, which was designed to encourage private lawyers to take on suits to protect civil and constitutional rights. The law provides that judges can order federal and state governments to pay legal fees to private lawyers who sued the government and won. The result has been a flood of civil rights cases in federal court. From The New American Feb. 2, 1987
It's an outrage that US law, passed during the Watergate era, allows the ACLU to collect attorney's fees for makework----Christian-hatng lawsuits it itself launches.
That means "values voters" have been footing the bill for the ACLU's launching a juggernaut to remove Ten Commandments images, Christmas creches and Christmas carols, taking God out of the Pledge of Allegiance, and because they claim they have a civil right not to see the Ten Commandments, a civil right not to hear the word “God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, not to see a creche of the Baby Jesus, not to hear Christmas carols. The ACLU has collected a huge amount of our tax dollars in this left-handed fundraiser for the ACLU.
FReepers can silence the ACLU with a bit of activism. We need to insist our Congressmen repeal this abusive law that allows the ACLU to get rich on harassing Christian America. Congress must repeal laws enabling the ACLU's Christian-hating activities. Cut off the ACLU's funds and watch them disappear. Here's what we can do.
Under the aegis of the ACLU's Foundation---worth some $135 million---any number of financial travesties can be hidden. The IRS should determine whether the ACLU is properly accounting for all its tax-funded activities, whether it is inflating legal costs, and whether it is using tax dollars for the purposes stated. We need to know whether the ACLU is engaged in Enron-style accounting and spending practices.
REFERENCE SOURCE FOR ARGUING REPEAL TO CONGRESS
Apparently, when Congress contemplated the fee-shifting bill three decades ago, it never conceived that 42 U.S.C. §1988 would be used to secure fees in esoteric battles over the meaning of the establishment clause of the First Amendment.
The statute gives a court "discretion" to award attorneys' fees to the prevailing party in civil rights cases.
Study of the legislative history of the statute reveals that Congress intended this statute to apply to civil rights abuses, including certain race and sex discrimination cases, but not to arguments about whether Judge Roy Moore is allowed to display the Ten Commandments in the Alabama courthouse.
During the deliberations on the bill, the Senate penned that "in many cases arising under our civil rights laws, the citizen who must sue to enforce the law has little or no money with which to hire a lawyer."[6] In the recent First Amendment lawsuits filed by the ACLU, the tables are turned.
Small school districts and municipalities can either defend lawsuits and risk paying the ACLU's attorneys' fees if they lose, or they can voluntarily submit to the ACLU's view of the Constitution.
Even if lawsuits over the establishment clause somehow fall within 42 U.S.C. §1988, the statute empowers courts with nothing more than "discretion" to award fees.
In these cases, one would expect courts to withhold awarding fees. Since this is not happening, Congress must take immediate action to clarify 42 U.S.C. §1988 to explicitly exclude lawsuits related to the acknowledgement of God.
NOTE: In order to spread this message far and wide, you may have already received it. Sorry about that.
Agreed.
I see a time coming when these anti-American, leftist-type ACLU people are put up against a wall and shot.
If this is the case, you run smack dab into the first amendment...
Yeah, but the First Amendment didn't stop McCain/Feingold's CFR, even after review by the Supreme Court.
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