Posted on 09/07/2003 12:13:59 PM PDT by atomic conspiracy
Anthoney D. Romero
Executive Director
Dear ACLU Member,
The separation between church and state has been chipped away at by religious extremists for years. Now, our elected officials are taking sledgehammers to its very foundation.
That's one reason why I am so concerned that your ACLU membership has lapsed.
Most civil libertarians consider the ACLU to be the last line of defense against opponents determined not only to force prayer into our public school, but also to make religious doctrine---THEIR religious doctrine---the law of the land.
But ACLU supporters like you and other freedom-loving Americans aren't the only ones who know it. Our opponents know it too.
That's why undermining the ACLU's ability to defend the First Amendment--- by public attacks on our motives, even our patriotism---is so essential to the religous right's schemes to destroy church-state separation.
It's a fight we are ready and willing to take on. At the same time, we dare not ignore other attacks on constitutional rights that range from John Ashcroft's plans for further invading your privacy though government snooping to draconian restrictions on free speech.
Our ability to turn back these unprecedented assaults on civil liberties depends on your reponse to this letter. That's why I'm asking you to renew your ACLU membership by returning the enclosed reply form with the most generous contributions you can make.
Your prompt renewal will help ensure that religious liberty, freedom of expression, privacy rights, and other constitional principles remain intact.
Because ACLU is now engaged in a wide variety of battles to preserve and advance civil liberties, it's difficult for me to say which of these fights is most important. but maintaining church-state separation as we know it---and as the framers of our Constitution intended---is certainly near the top of our priority list at this moment.
We must defeat plans to amend the Constitution that would allow school-sponsored prayer in our public schools while opposing the Bush Administrations's attempts to fund religious-bsed social services with taxpayer money.
We faced such challenges in the past, but bolstered by President Bush's public declaration that "faith in the Almighty" can cure America's social ills, radical religious right forces are now escalating their attacks on the wall of separation between church and state.
Passing a school prayer amendment and grabbing millions more taxpayer dollars under the Administration's so-called "faith-based" initiative are only the religous right's first objectives. Next will come the mandating of government-approved paryer in our public schools, social servies gutted and replaced by religion-based programs, and widespread diversion of taxpayer support from schools to private religious ones.
In short, if far-right forces succeed in amending our Constitution, religious liberty in America will be irreparably damaged. That's why we have reactivated the coalition we formed to defeat their last push for a school prayer amendment. This diverse coalition of religious leaders of varied faiths and influential people from across the political spectrum can help the public understand how vital the separation of church and state really is.
But the vast public education efforts needed to get out the message to the American people---via the airwaves, the INternet, op-ed columns and newspaper editorials---require a major financial commitment on our part.
And even as devote more ACLU resources to protecting religious freedom, we must expand our nationwide Keep America Safe and Free Campaign that has already proven so effectie in slowing government plans for spying on innocent Americans, tracking our every movement and building a massive Defense Department database that would treat us all as suspects.
I have described only a few of the reasons your renewed support is so very important this year. But I hope you can see why I'm urging you to renew your ACLU membership today with the most generaous donation possible.
Our Constitution desperately needs your support...so does everyone here at the ACLU.
Sincerely,
Anthony D. Romero
Executive Director
P.S. I am writing again only because your renewed support is so essential to preserving the wall of separation between church and state. Please don't allow the enemies of liberty and tolerance to weaken your ACLU during this time of crisis.
[All underlining, bold type, and italics appear in original mailout]
His metaphorical image of evil RR conspirators chipping away at civil liberties, and resorting to sledgehammers, seemed to have an odd resonance with the real image of a certain work of literal stone-carving, the Alabama 10 Commandments Monument, being hauled away.
There are some real threats to civil liberties out there, but take note of where Romero places ACLU's priorities; Yes, government spying is an issue but nothing like as important to him as school prayer and the faith-based initiative.
I haven't belonged to ACLU in almost 10 years, but I still get one of these mail-outs about once a month. I don't know what they cost, but I figure that just a handful of apostates like me can eat up one faithful member's annual dues simply by continuing to receive useless mailouts.
Use the self addressed postage paid envelope to write to them and ask a question, make it one that requires a bit of research to answer. It will cost them money to answer you, money they can't spend attacking our rights.
Perhaps they can't stand the competiton:
"Most civil libertarians consider the ACLU to be the last line of defense..."
"social services gutted and replaced by religion-based programs, and widespread diversion of taxpayer support from schools to private religious ones."
Could it be that Romero actually fears massive unemployment among social service drones and NEA-protected incompetents?
Barry Steinhardt described the work of the ACLU, which is 77-years-old, has 300,000 members, 300 staff (including 100 lawyers) and 60 offices around the United States. Its annual budget is $35 million. This makes it a small group for a national membership organization in the US context, and most of its state offices have only one or two staff members and no staff lawyers.
A key issue for a public interest law organization, said Steinhardt, is what kind of legal service provider it seeks to be. In the United States, two models have emerged: that of the high-volume legal service provider, which provides assistance in a large number of cases within a given area of the law, or the law reform organization, which takes a relatively small number of cases affecting large numbers of people and/or with precedential significance for the law. The ACLU is within the second of these models and focuses on strategic impact litigation.
Like NGOs in Eastern Europe and South Africa, US NGOs also must be cautious about preserving their non-partisanship. The ACLU does not accept government funds, with the exception of the Civil Rights Attorneys' Fees Act, which provides for the recovery of attorneys fees when one sues the state or federal government. The ACLU also relies on membership fees and private funding.
Bingo!
Now we know where they get their 35 million dollar budget from. The government provides for them in "attorney fees".
The ACLU considers the Second Amendment to be "embarrassing". They believe in the right of commies to shoot off their mouth, but not about a citizen being able to defend family, community or country.
The "Motto" of the ACLU, has been that the Bill of Rights is their client. However, they expose their "Orwellian, Newspeak", by treating some Amendments of the Bill of Rights, a lot more equal than the others.
Here is what I do when I receive junk mail from liberal orgs:
I send back their "postage paid" envelope with nothing inside.
Executive Director
I thought Tony Romero drove a produce truck.
FMCDH
Boy, have you done it now. Get ready.
Because they're a bunch of filthy, rotten, hypocritical, gun-grabbing leftist SCUM who subscribe to an even MORE foul variety of situational ethics than the average piece-of-Schumer Commie scumbag.
Back in my younger... *very* younger... days, I used to volunteer for the ACLU. I did a lot of stamp-licking and mailing for them. At that time, in my naivete', I viewed them as basically dedicated to protecting us from the Government.
But even in my naive, idealistic, and arguably benighted state, before volunteering I queried the local office director - just to be sure - about the ACLU's position on the Second Amendment. She assured me - and in no uncertain terms - that the ACLU was dedicated to protecting the First Amendment, and had no interest in Second Amendment issues one way or the other. And I believed her...
Then, some funny things started happening.
First, at some point I noticed that I was starting to get mailings from Handgun Control, Inc. Then... at one point, I moved... and when I changed my address for my ACLU membership, there was a minor misspelling of my new address on their mailings to my new address... and I noticed that I started to get *similarly* misspelled mailings from Handgun Control, Inc.
I quit volunteering...
Then a debate started up in the ACLU newsletter, over gun control - and the ACLU National leadership, in response to a number of angry letters from soon-to-be-former members, blithely stated that they thought the Government had the right to trash the Second Amendment while they sat there on their rotten leftist butts claiming to defend the First Amendment.
I quit contributing...
Finally, some time later, for some unrelated-to-my-then-expired-membership reason, I ended up in the local ACLU orifice - and I noticed they had contact information for a nascent local anti-gun organization - " Handgun Alert", I think it was - posted on the wall of the office right next to the phone.
NOW... Whatever that organization satands for, and whatever they *claim* to satand for, notwithsatanding: they LIED to me and they BETRAYED me. Not just my "cause", or my "ideals" - but ME, PERSONALLY.
They've made an enemy out of me - and not just a political enemy, but a *personal* enemy. I will refrain, in deference to the policy of this website on postings which advocate violence, from being more explicit in describing the breadth, length, and depth of my hatred for the ACLU, for having thus betrayed me.
And they'd better hope - *all* of them - that I'm just a blowhard, that I remain impotent to wreak personal retribution on them, that I never get a chance to pay them back...
(There - Sorry you asked?)
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