The ACLU Metamorphosis into an Unprincipled Partisan Organization Nears Completion

I completely agree with Jesse Singal. Why would this formerly principled and prestigious organization, one that purportedly advocates for civil liberties, root for the prosecutor in the absence of any comment or concern about how the trial was conducted? Shouldn't the ACLU always be defending the Rule of Law? The Title of Singal's article: "I Don’t Like Watching The Institutions I Respect Melt Down Into A Single Congealed Unprincipled Gloop."

A lot of organizations issued statements in response to Kyle Rittenhouse’s acquittal. The ACLU’s really jumped out at me. “Despite Kyle Rittenhouse’s conscious decision to take the lives of two people protesting the shooting of Jacob Blake by police, he was not held responsible for his actions, something that is not surprising,” said Shaadie Ali, interim executive director of the ACLU of Wisconsin. Brandon Buskey, director of the ACLU’s Criminal Law Reform Project, added: “Kyle Rittenhouse was a juvenile who traveled across state lines on a vigilante mission, was allowed by police to roam the streets of Kenosha with an assault rifle and ended up shooting three people and killing two.”

If you know anything about the ACLU’s history or reasons for existing, these are very strange — disturbing, I’d argue — statements. The ACLU of Wisconsin seems to be saying Kyle Rittenhouse should have been convicted. What else could a statement noting that he “was not held responsible for his actions,” issued the day of his full acquittal, possibly mean? If you don’t think he was guilty of the crimes he was accused of, there’s nothing for him to have been “held responsible” for. The ACLU is supposed to stand on the side of vulnerable people facing a justice system that has a chronic tendency to overcharge and to withhold from suspects and defendants their full constitutional rights. Why is the ACLU of Wisconsin siding with that system — especially without any further explanation as to why this was an unjust ruling?

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The Woke are Now Devouring Each Other

Wokeness, which is prettied-up nihilism, is causing young democrats to devour each other. The article at Politico is titled: "Allegations of bigotry and calls for impeachment rock College Democrats."

The group’s leaders are publicly firing off accusations of anti-Blackness, Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism at each other. Impeachment proceedings are now in the works against the organization’s new vice president, Nourhan Mesbah, who is Muslim. College Democrats say that screenshots of tweets that their peers sent in adolescence spread rapidly through group texts, which already caused a student running for president of the group to withdraw their candidacy in September. And national advocacy groups for Muslim and Jewish Americans are now weighing in with criticism.

The conflict has gotten so messy that the Democratic National Committee is considering disaffiliating with the national collegiate organization altogether and creating a partnership with the state groups underneath the national umbrella, according to a Democrat familiar with the discussions. The DNC declined to comment.

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John McWhorter Discusses his New Book, Woke Racism

John McWhorter discusses his new book, Woke Racism, with Nick Gillespie of Reason. How did we get to the Woke Present? This is an hour-long discussion that draws repeatedly on history, connecting the dots from approximately the 1950s to the present.

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Bullying Tactics and the Gender Critical Position

Naomi Cunningham's article is titled "Why did lawyers try to cancel me over trans rights?" She ends her article on a hopeful note: bullying tactics by trans rights activists seem to be less effective of late.

Over the last couple of years, I’ve been writing regularly on the seething controversies around biological sex and gender identity. I’m a barrister, specialising in discrimination and employment law and chair of the new human rights organisation Sex Matters, so I take a professional as well as a personal interest in the subject. My stance is broadly ‘gender critical’. I believe that biological sex is real, and that sometimes has consequences that matter; that there are exactly two sexes; and that although human beings are free to embrace the gendered behaviour associated with the opposite sex, and even to modify their bodies so that they look more like a member of the opposite sex, they cannot literally change sex.

These facts are obviously true, and the vast majority of people believe them. And yet they are now also bitterly contested. Many of those writing and campaigning in this area have suffered bullying, no-platforming, threats to their livelihoods, and even threats of death or rape. The attacks are disgraceful, but I became concerned that they were creating a chilling effect wider than was justified by the real risks in speaking up. So last month, I wrote my own story in a short blog, entitled 'Not Cancelled: I have suffered no serious adverse consequences from my gender-critical writing. The end.’

That’s still true – but in the last few days I have faced quite a serious attempt to cancel me from an event at which I was to speak.

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