The ACLU and terrorism

I think it was Fausta who recently mentioned to us the problems she saw within the ACLU. She's not alone. I don't want to 'bulldoze' the ACLU, as is mentioned here, but if that's really what it takes to fulfill its mandate - let 'er rip. Looks like we're generally due for an overhaul of many of our institutions of 'reform' - the U.N., the Pew Charitable Trust, the ACLU and so on. But in this lies a key concept we've grown to understand: Institutionalizing an ideal inevitably kills it. We can't depend on our institutions to realize our ideals and dreams for us.

That's why one of our most basic documents urges us: "whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive... it is the Right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new Government laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and Happiness."

Institutions, like architecture, require periodic teardowns and rebuilds. Jefferson, for one, saw this as inevitable. Martin Luther, Ghandi, Jesus and others were all about the problems inherent in reforming even well-meaning institutions, and encouraging us to tear them down when necessary. This movement (in the ">linked post) is about tearing down such an institution. Like Jefferson, who immediately coupled his 'teardown' mandate with a 'rebuild' one, I'd feel better about this movement if its organizers told us more about what the ACLU would be replaced with.

{UPDATE: The venerable Boy Scouts of America are under ACLU attack regarding their use of the word 'God' in their oath. A list of linked articles on this issue appears on their site. We almost added 'Holy Moly!' but after reading these articles we thought better of it.}

Categories: Politics