ACLU asks Supreme Court to hear Va. alcohol ad ban

The ACLU continues to pursue it's agenda of tearing down America.

Why does everything always have to be all or nothing. Alcohol IS a dangerous drug but can be used in social situations will dinner. I personally can not have one drink because for some reason. I will drink until I kill myself. I see no reason to have alcohol with proof higher than that of beer. There should be a limit to the amount of alcohol one consumerr can purchase without a permit. There should be a bar code on your drivers licences or ID that tracks the amount of alcohol a person is purchasing to moniter who are alcohol addicts so they can be treated.

Waldo of Galena wrote:

Why does everything always have to be all or nothing. Alcohol IS a dangerous drug but can be used in social situations will dinner. I personally can not have one drink because for some reason. I will drink until I kill myself. I see no reason to have alcohol with proof higher than that of beer. There should be a limit to the amount of alcohol one consumerr can purchase without a permit. There should be a bar code on your drivers licences or ID that tracks the amount of alcohol a person is purchasing to moniter who are alcohol addicts so they can be treated.

Yeah, you rightwingers love that authoritarianism stuff don't you? Police state, laws for everything. You can't control your self so you want the government to control you? What a loser.

Who funds the ACLU?

They seek to rescind the LIFETIME registry for Sexual Offenders

http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-...

and

to rescind restrictions on where sex offenders may live.

http://www.theunionleader.com/article.aspx...

The ACLU seeks to protect sex offenders, but not our children, the innocent.

THO FUNDS THE ALCU?$14 MILLION in salary for the ACLU.

Who contributes? Undetermining America.

ALCU - no friend to America.

Waldo of Galena wrote:

Why does everything always have to be all or nothing. Alcohol IS a dangerous drug but can be used in social situations will dinner. I personally can not have one drink because for some reason. I will drink until I kill myself.

Then why don't you drink until you kill yourself!! You waste of oxygen!!!

Waldo of Galena wrote:

Why does everything always have to be all or nothing. Alcohol IS a dangerous drug but can be used in social situations will dinner. I personally can not have one drink because for some reason. I will drink until I kill myself. I see no reason to have alcohol with proof higher than that of beer. There should be a limit to the amount of alcohol one consumerr can purchase without a permit. There should be a bar code on your drivers licences or ID that tracks the amount of alcohol a person is purchasing to moniter who are alcohol addicts so they can be treated.

The fact that you have no self-control is no excuse to take alcohol away from decent, normal people.

Thank you for showing your callus apathy.

Remember In November wrote:

Who funds the ACLU?
They seek to rescind the LIFETIME registry for Sexual Offenders
http://www.aclu.org/racial-justice_prisoners-...
and
to rescind restrictions on where sex offenders may live.
http://www.theunionleader.com/article.aspx...
The ACLU seeks to protect sex offenders, but not our children, the innocent.
THO FUNDS THE ALCU?$14 MILLION in salary for the ACLU.
Who contributes? Undetermining America.
ALCU - no friend to America.

This post has nothing to do with the issue of this thread, but your comment demands a rebuttal.

You have mischaracterized both of these issues and are guilty of egregious dishonesty.

Did you even read the articles you cited? It would appear not, since any semi-literate, marginally educated person who did could not have reached such faulty conclusions.

Your obvious disdain for, and complete lack of knowledge about the ACLU has affected your ability to objectively and intelligently consider the facts of these cases and reasons behind the courts’ decisions.

Clear Thinker wrote:

<quoted text>
This post has nothing to do with the issue of this thread, but your comment demands a rebuttal.
You have mischaracterized both of these issues and are guilty of egregious dishonesty.
Did you even read the articles you cited? It would appear not, since any semi-literate, marginally educated person who did could not have reached such faulty conclusions.
Your obvious disdain for, and complete lack of knowledge about the ACLU has affected your ability to objectively and intelligently consider the facts of these cases and reasons behind the courts’ decisions.

Well, you certainly used a lot of words, but managed to produce not a syllable of argument to make your point. Proclaiming someone wrong without backing up your charges is nothing but a weak, ineffective and pointless rant.

Why is he wrong, hotshot? Let's see your reasoning.

Wheather or not what I said was directly about the article my thought are still rational and valid. I can feel heads spinning.

McCarthy was right wrote:

<quoted text>
Well, you certainly used a lot of words, but managed to produce not a syllable of argument to make your point. Proclaiming someone wrong without backing up your charges is nothing but a weak, ineffective and pointless rant.
Why is he wrong, hotshot? Let's see your reasoning.

Gladly. I’ll do better than giving you just my reasoning, I’ll give you the court’s decisions as well.

First, I think it’s important to note that both links ‘Remember’ posted are historic.
The first links to an article dated February 2, 2009; the second, to an article dated August 5, 2009.

His first statement:“They seek to rescind the LIFETIME registry for Sexual Offenders.”
Not true.
The argement brought before the court was whether the stricter rules of Maine's sex offender registry, based on the 1999 law, could be applied retroactively.
There is no mention or suggestion that of a challenge being made to the 1999 law itself, which required offenders to register every 90 days, and remain on the list for life.
The challenge was to applying the 1999 law, ex post facto, to Eric Letalien who was convicted in 1996. The law in effect at the time of his conviction required him to
to register as a sex offender every year for 15 years.

Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution says that no state shall pass any ex post facto law. Article I, section 9, clause 3 imposes the same prohibition upon the federal government.

Of course, the most important fact to consider in this is that the Maine Supreme Judicial Court ruled in favor of Letalien on December 22, 2009.
http://www.courts.state.me.us/court_info/opin...

The second link pertained to a city ordinance in Dover, N.H. that barred convicted sex offenders from living within 2500 feet of a school or day care center. The challenge was one of the constitutionality of the law.
The District Court Judge ruled that was because it violated the due process clause of the 14th Amendment and that the state failed to meet is burden of proof establishing that the ordinance bears a "substantial relation to important government interest.”
http://www.courts.state.nh.us/caseinfo/pdf/je...

As a result of that court’s ruling, the New Hampahire legislature passed HB 1484 earlier this year which prohibited “any political subdivision of the state from adopting an ordinance or bylaw that restricts the residence of a sexual offender or an offender against children.” It further provided that “Any such ordinance or bylaw adopted by a political subdivision of the state prior to the effective date of this section shall be null and void on the effective date of this section.”
http://www.generalcourt.state.nh.us/legislati...

As for posting a “weak, ineffective and pointless rant,’ that was what ‘Remember in November’ did. In his blind accusation, he wasn’t even aware that both of the cases he referred to had already been settled.

I’ll rest on the certainty of my position and the authoritative citations I’ve provided to support it.
And I did it without any name calling.

I challenge facts, not people. If you have a rebuttal to those facts, please provide cites with equally supportive documentation.

Waldo of Galena wrote:

Wheather or not what I said was directly about the article my thought are still rational and valid. I can feel heads spinning.

You give yourself too much credit. Your proposal to create more spying Big Nanny Government is nauseating to Americans.

Another matter that has not received much attention;

http://www.youtube.com/watch...

May God bless and have mercy on us.

Boozehounds Drink Free wrote:

<quoted text>You give yourself too much credit. Your proposal to create more spying Big Nanny Government is nauseating to Americans.

What about person who does not have a family for an intervention? Does this person not deserve a big brother or just an unfortunate casualty of neglect.

Clear Thinker wrote:

<quoted text>
Gladly. I’ll do better than giving you just my reasoning, I’ll give you the court’s decisions as well.
(edited for Topix space requirements)

MUCH better, although it was unfortunate that you felt the need to finish with an attempt to argue that making ‘weak, ineffective and pointless rants’ was justified since the other poster had established the template.

Also unfortunate was the statement “I challenge facts, not people”, a comment that is obviously disputed by your original ad hominem post.

It’s up to “Remember” to defend his own statements, but after a quick glance at his first link it appears that you're correct regarding his claim that the point was to “rescind” lifetime registry. I do regret the court’s decision and the ACLU’s participation in what will apparently make it more difficult to update sex offender laws.

His second link goes to a story no longer available, but, again,“rescind” is inappropriate. On the surface, though, it seems reasonable to me to distance registered sex offenders from children.

Also, although he didn’t articulate it very well, it seemed clear to me that “Remember’s” main point was to question the source of the ACLU’s funding.

Joe McCarthy was right wrote:

<quoted text>
MUCH better, although it was unfortunate that you felt the need to finish with an attempt to argue that making ‘weak, ineffective and pointless rants’ was justified since the other poster had established the template.
Also unfortunate was the statement “I challenge facts, not people”, a comment that is obviously disputed by your original ad hominem post.
It’s up to “Remember” to defend his own statements, but after a quick glance at his first link it appears that you're correct regarding his claim that the point was to “rescind” lifetime registry. I do regret the court’s decision and the ACLU’s participation in what will apparently make it more difficult to update sex offender laws.
His second link goes to a story no longer available, but, again,“rescind” is inappropriate. On the surface, though, it seems reasonable to me to distance registered sex offenders from children.
Also, although he didn’t articulate it very well, it seemed clear to me that “Remember’s” main point was to question the source of the ACLU’s funding.

I disagree with your thought that I used an ad hominen attack. It’s not ad hominem to point out blatant dishonesty—which is what his/her post consisted of in its entirety, in my opinion.
My comment about ‘weak, ineffective rants’ was in reference to Remember’s original post. I took the liberty of quoting you because it seemed an apt phrase to apply to his comment.
If you’re referring to my comment ‘any semi-literate, marginally educated person,’ you’ll see that I didn’t accuse him/her of not having those skills, but rather that anyone who did would have had no trouble understanding the content of the articles, if he/she read them in the first place, which I don’t believe Remember actually did.

Nor do I understand your regret about the court’s decision in either case. In the first, it merely said that the application of an ex post facto law was unconstitutional—which it clearly was. It didn’t have any effect on the newer law which was passed subsequent to the defendant’s earlier conviction.
In the second case, the same legal principle applied, and by virtue of that fact the legislature enacted a law that prohibited any restrictions on residency in violation of the 14th Amendment.

And if Remember’s main point was to question the source of the ACLU’s funding, then Remember is guilty of extreme laziness. That information is readily available and it would have required fewer keystrokes to find it than all those in the original post.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_L...

If Remember wanted more details, he/she could have gone here:
http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/about/fy2009_a...

In the end, I regarded Remember’s post as just another uninformed, knee-jerk attack against an organization he/she personally dislikes and against laws he/she doesn’t understand but was unwilling to do even a modicum of research to get accurate information about before launching an opinionated tirade.
Unfortunately, there are many people on Topix who are too willing to accept that kind of nonsense as fact and without question and repeat it on other threads.

Clear Thinker, did you actually believe these gibbering anti-ACLU monkeys would actually read the court decision, let alone understand it?

I wish I had your patience.

Clear Thinker wrote:

<quoted text>
I disagree with your thought that I used an ad hominen attack. It’s not ad hominem to point out blatant dishonesty—which is what his/her post consisted of in its entirety, in my opinion.
My comment about ‘weak, ineffective rants’ was in reference to Remember’s original post. I took the liberty of quoting you because it seemed an apt phrase to apply to his comment.
If you’re referring to my comment ‘any semi-literate, marginally educated person,’ you’ll see that I didn’t accuse him/her of not having those skills, but rather that anyone who did would have had no trouble understanding the content of the articles, if he/she read them in the first place, which I don’t believe Remember actually did.
Nor do I understand your regret about the court’s decision in either case. In the first, it merely said that the application of an ex post facto law was unconstitutional—which it clearly was. It didn’t have any effect on the newer law which was passed subsequent to the defendant’s earlier conviction.
In the second case, the same legal principle applied, and by virtue of that fact the legislature enacted a law that prohibited any restrictions on residency in violation of the 14th Amendment.
And if Remember’s main point was to question the source of the ACLU’s funding, then Remember is guilty of extreme laziness. That information is readily available and it would have required fewer keystrokes to find it than all those in the original post.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Civil_L...
If Remember wanted more details, he/she could have gone here:
http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/about/fy2009_a...
In the end, I regarded Remember’s post as just another uninformed, knee-jerk attack against an organization he/she personally dislikes and against laws he/she doesn’t understand but was unwilling to do even a modicum of research to get accurate information about before launching an opinionated tirade.
Unfortunately, there are many people on Topix who are too willing to accept that kind of nonsense as fact and without question and repeat it on other threads.

“If you’re referring to my comment ‘any semi-literate, marginally educated person,’ you’ll see that I didn’t accuse him/her of not having those skills…”
Oh, come on. You can’t seriously think that is to be believed. You clearly intended to characterize the poster with those words.

As for the source of the ACLU’s funding, since neither of your links provide more than an extremely sketchy funding picture, they wouldn’t have helped answer “Remember’s” question. I have no interest in pursuing their tangled financing sources, but I'm as my later "nuggets" suggest, a full disclosure of who the ACLU is in bed with would be interesting.

The Tax Form did reveal a few interesting nuggets.

One was the clearly dishonest Tax Form statement “THE ACLU’S OBJECTS SHALL BE SOUGHT WHOLLY WITHOUT POLITICAL PARTISANSHIP."

Another was “THE ACLU TODAY REMAINS AS FOCUSED AS EVER ON THE OVERARCHING GOALS SET BY ITS (Communist) FOUNDERS NEARLY 90 YEARS AGO”

A third was reporting “Grassroots Campaign Inc” as it’s highest compensated independent contractor.”
(Grassroots’ client list includes names like George Soros’ MoveOn, ACORN, the DNC, unions, etc)

As for your last paragraph describing your “opinion” of “Remember”, I‘d have to say that (and, yes, it WAS ad hominem), you’re guilty of your own “knee-jerk attacks.”

Joe McCarthy was right wrote:

<quoted text>
“If you’re referring to my comment ‘any semi-literate, marginally educated person,’ you’ll see that I didn’t accuse him/her of not having those skills…”
Oh, come on. You can’t seriously think that is to be believed. You clearly intended to characterize the poster with those words.
As for the source of the ACLU’s funding, since neither of your links provide more than an extremely sketchy funding picture, they wouldn’t have helped answer “Remember’s” question. I have no interest in pursuing their tangled financing sources, but I'm as my later "nuggets" suggest, a full disclosure of who the ACLU is in bed with would be interesting.
The Tax Form did reveal a few interesting nuggets.
One was the clearly dishonest Tax Form statement “THE ACLU’S OBJECTS SHALL BE SOUGHT WHOLLY WITHOUT POLITICAL PARTISANSHIP."
Another was “THE ACLU TODAY REMAINS AS FOCUSED AS EVER ON THE OVERARCHING GOALS SET BY ITS (Communist) FOUNDERS NEARLY 90 YEARS AGO”
A third was reporting “Grassroots Campaign Inc” as it’s highest compensated independent contractor.”
(Grassroots’ client list includes names like George Soros’ MoveOn, ACORN, the DNC, unions, etc)
As for your last paragraph describing your “opinion” of “Remember”, I‘d have to say that (and, yes, it WAS ad hominem), you’re guilty of your own “knee-jerk attacks.”

You’re free to infer whatever you like, but don’t substitute your subjective inference for my explicitly stated meaning. My comment specifically attacked the obvious failure of Remember to read his/her own links—because if he/she had done so there would not have been the obvious lack of awareness that the cited articles were outdated and that the issues they referred to were faits accomplis.

My last paragraph said that I regarded Remember’s ‘post’ as a knee-jerk reaction,’ because that’s exactly what it was. None of the assertions were well thought out, and there was no supportive documentation of anything.
The failure to research the ACLU’s revenue sources is indicative of ‘researcher laziness.’ That’s a fair criticism of anyone who so obviously doesn’t do the requisite legwork.

And speaking of calling the kettle black….
You certainly took some literary license by including your editorial ‘Communist’ comment into the ACLU’s “Description of Organization Mission” on their Form 990.
In fact, it violates a basic citation style ‘General Rule For Quotations’ which says,“Never insert any other type of parenthetical information that is not part of the quotation.”
That’s certainly the organizational equivalent of an ad hominem attack, wouldn’t you say? While the popular myth is that Roger Baldwin was a Communist, there’s no evidence that I’m aware of that he was ever a member of that party. In the early days of the ACLU, all ‘leftist’ organizations were welcome, but in 1939, after the Soviet-Nazi non aggression pact, Baldwin took action to rid the ACLU of Communists and Communist policies.
http://books.google.com/books...

Additionally, you toss in George Soros, MoveOn, etc. But why? What about them?
Is there some inference you want people to make that you can’t state as factual and support with your own citations—which, by the way, you post is totally devoid of?
Are they, or the ACLU, guilty of some wrongdoing simply by their mutual association?
For you to have challenged me to back up my statements with your comment “Proclaiming someone wrong without backing up your charges is nothing but a weak, ineffective and pointless rant,” and then fail to do so yourself strikes me as employing a double standard.

Clear Thinker wrote:

<quoted text>

Part 1

Baldwin was an open statist who was quite candid about his Communist activity. Since there are a multitude of records regarding that, only the ignorant, a brainwashed ideologue, or a deliberate liar would bother denying it. A few examples:

1)“Reflecting on his early years as the ACLU's Executive Director, Baldwin candidly revealed his original motives and objectives: "I am for socialism, disarmament, and ultimately, for abolishing the state itself as an instrument of violence and compulsion. I seek social ownership of property, the abolition of the properties class, and sole control of those who produce wealth. Communism is the goal. It all sums up into one single purpose -- the abolition of dog-eat-dog under which we live. I don't regret being part of the communist tactic. I knew what I was doing. I was not an innocent liberal. I wanted what the communists wanted and I traveled the United Front road to get it."

2)“Several crucial leaders of the ACLU were members of the Communist Party. Earl Browder, then General Secretary of the Communist Party, said the ACLU functioned as "a transmission belt" for the party. Baldwin also stated “We are for SOCIALISM, disarmament, and ultimately for abolishing the state itself... We seek the social ownership of property, the abolition of the propertied class, and the SOLE CONTROL of those who produce wealth. COMMUNISM is the goal.”

3) In 1934 Baldwin authored a piece titled "Freedom in the USA and the USSR." He wrote: "The class struggle is the central conflict of the world; all others are incidental. When that power of the working class is once achieved, as it has been only in the Soviet Union, I am for maintaining it by any means whatever. Dictatorship is the obvious means in a world of enemies at home and abroad. I dislike it in principle as dangerous to its own objects. But the Soviet Union has already created liberties far greater than exist elsewhere in the world.…[There] I saw ... fresh, vigorous expressions of free living by workers and peasants all over the land. And further, no champion of a socialist society could fail to see that some suppression was necessary to achieve it. It could not all be done by persuasion.…[I]f American champions of civil liberty could all think in terms of economic freedom as the goal of their labors, they too would accept 'workers' democracy' as far superior to what the capitalist world offers to any but a small minority. Yes, and they would accept — regretfully, of course — the necessity of dictatorship while the job of reorganizing society on a socialist basis is being done."

4) Finally, the reason for Baldwin’s later purging of Communists was not a change of heart, but anger at the Soviet Union.“Baldwin altered his stance in 1939 when the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact was signed. Angry that the Soviets had betrayed all principles by signing an accord with Hitler, Baldwin promptly sought to have all remaining Communists removed from the ACLU board; the Communist labor organizer, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, was among those purged from the organization.”

Of course, the above shows why the Tax Form statement reveals so clearly what the ACLU is even today. They really mean it when they say
“THE ACLU TODAY REMAINS AS FOCUSED AS EVER ON
THE OVERARCHING GOALS SET BY ITS (Communist) FOUNDERS NEARLY 90 YEARS AGO”