In an 8-1 decision this week, The Supreme Court ruled in favor of a teenager who had been thrown off her high school's cheerleading squad for a vulgar tirade she had posted to Snapchat after not making the varsity team.
"F--- school, f----softball, f--- cheer, f---everything,"
Following the ruling, the ACLU, which had supported the teenager, proceeded to act like one (language warning at that link).
Edgy.
Also, childish.
They've had the shirt available for sale for some time, a play off the teenagers Snapchat meltdown, but they took the Supreme Court's decision as an excellent marketing opportunity.
They even have a web page dedicated to the merch.
I'm thinking a late Mother's Day gift.
I am by no means an angel when it comes to profanity, but time and place, people, time and place. Plus, this is the kind of juvenile outburst you'd expect from an insecure teenager, which is exactly what it was, not something to be memorialized by a serious organization allegedly run by adults.
Let's take a closer look.
Say it with us:
F--- school.
F--- softball.
F--- cheer.
F--- everything.
This is starting to remind me of an Antifa rallying cry. All that's missing is "ACAB" and a reminder to bring your mom's Visa card.
We know our First Amendment rights and we will use them. Get the new F---Everything tee today. http://aclu.org/f---everything
"We know our First Amendment rights," so buy our stuff.
Just because someone has the right to do something, doesn't mean it's something you need to embrace yourself. The ACLU used to defend the rights of Nazis and the KKK to hold marches, but I don't recall them ever celebrating their court victories with Hitler merch and co-branded white hoods.
I say "used to" because the ACLU has sort of altered its formerly unflinching approach to the defense of free speech.
Their old stance was this:
"[i]t is easy to defend freedom of speech when the message is something many people find at least reasonable. But the defense of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive."
The new-and-improved woke stance is this:
The American Civil Liberties Union has explicitly endorsed the view that free speech can harm "marginalized" groups by undermining their civil rights. "Speech that denigrates such groups can inflict serious harms and is intended to and often will impede progress toward equality," the ACLU declares in new guidelines governing case selection and "Conflicts Between Competing Values or Priorities."
"The defense of freedom of speech is most critical when the message is one most people find repulsive except for those messages that we find repulsive."
That's not a defense of free speech, that's acquiescing to censorship of speech you don't like.
The ACLU used to be maddening at times, but at least they were principled.
Now they're just maddening.
