This comment rates better treatment than HaloScan would give it:

Probligo said: "In view of your sometimes scathing opinion of the ACLU one can only assume that perhaps they are acting to support the "wrong rights".

Well, I would say, having read a portion of Old Whig, that Al recognizes that the ACLU is not really acting to support inherent, individual rights, per se. They are acting to support privileges (aka constructed rights) and then misleadingly calling them rights. Which, I must admit, most people steeped in neo-liberalism (as opposed to classic liberalism) do. The problem, of course, is that neo-liberalism is, in reality, derived from the socialist view that the group is more important than the individual, which, in turn, derives from earlier republican and monarchist theories (see Gordon Wood, The Radicalism of the American Revolution or Montesquieue). Since none of these focus on the rights of the individual, only the privileges (because there is a base assumption that the individual's rights must be subordinated to the group's needs), you can see why an individualist, whether an "Old Whig" such as Al, or a rational anarchist (aka Jeffersonian Liberal) such as me, would have a major problem with the ACLU.

The reality is that if you fully defend every individual's rights to life, liberty and property then things like free speech, religion, privacy are taken care of, because those are privileges constructed from those inherent rights. But, you first have to accept that the individual's rights trump the group's desires. Otherwise the privileges the ACLU so ardently defends can be changed at will when the group wants them changed.
Eric | Homepage | 08.18.05 - 4:13 pm | #

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And Erkki... I mean Eric (that's just Norwegian/Swedish/Danish for Erkki--don't forget the "k" is long) deserves a link from me. I like anarcho-capitalism, I just don't think we'll get there any time soon.

Update: Eric, ya flamin' hairhead! That link's no good!

People should use this one.