Plead the First

Ed Brayton, from Dispatches from the Culture Wars, rips into a rant posted at stoptheaclu.com. The author of the rant, Gribbit, contends at one point that “The Great Society” is a failure, and complains about Democratic policies to “re-distribute the wealth of this nation.” Brayton responds:

Here’s a pop quiz for Gribbit – with full control of the White House and Congress, what have the Republicans done to counter that redistribution of wealth? Answer: made it worse. Far worse. Not only did they pass the largest new entitlement program since the Great Society (and lie about the ultimate cost of it), they also passed legislation that transfers well over $100 billion from predominately middle class taxpayers into the accounts of major corporations through tax subsidies, immunity from liability, tax breaks and much more. It’s interesting to me that so many conservatives believe that only welfare programs qualify as “income redistribution”, ignoring the vast amounts of corporate welfare in the Federal budget.

Gribbit also repeatedly compares the ACLU and Democrats to Communists, to which Brayton replies:

The “communist” epithet is just plain idiotic. The hallmark of a communist state is the government’s authority to spy on their citizens with unchecked authority, imprison them without due process, and use the coercive authority of the state to deny them the right to live their lives free.

Sound like any administrations you know?

Of course, the tired cry that the ACLU wants to stifle all religious expression makes an appearance, and is addressed:

Even if you think that the ACLU sometimes goes too far in objecting to anything that could possibly be interpreted as government endorsement (and I happen to think that myself), these still are not attempts to violate individual free exercise of religion and it is absurd to claim that they are. It becomes doubly absurd when they ignore the consistent support that the ACLU has shown for real public expression of religion. They have defended the right of ministers to preach on the street, on public sidewalks and on public property, all over the nation. They have defended the right of students in public schools to hand out religious literature to their classmates, to wear clothing with religious messages on them, and to organize bible clubs and prayer groups. They’ve defended the right of religious groups and churches to use public property on an equal basis with other groups. I’ve documented dozens of such cases here.

There’s a lot more, and Brayton does a good job as usual, so please read the whole thing.

This entry was posted on Monday, January 9th, 2006 at 9:22 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.