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This is the best news I’ve seen in quite some time. Nat Hentoff has gone public with the fact that the ACLU is in serious trouble because, among other things, “an intolerance of free speech and dissent within its own ranks.”

I know, and so does Nat, that leftists ultimately expose themselves by clamping down and quashing their own supporters. Make no mistake: being progressive and being a leftist are two different things–true progressives–today’s conservatives–are the last flameholders of free speech, personal liberty and the small, non-invasive government that secures those values .

Hentoff’s piece exposes the fact that, as true progressives left or were forced out, leftists gained control of the ACLU and are destroying it. NOW is an example of the same parasitic leftist process destroying an organization. Here’s the core of Hentoff’s piece in USA Today:

Battle for the ACLU

…[T]he ACLU’s credibility among the citizenry at large will diminish as the war on terrorism continues indefinitely. The greatest cost will be to all of us, not only civil libertarians, in successive administrations controlled by either political party.

Particularly providing momentum to this rebellion was the decision of Romero’s longtime predecessor as executive director, Ira Glasser, to become a leader of the opposition after initially remaining silent. In “Why I Join,” on the website, Glasser speaks of the ACLU leadership’s “loss of … candor and its commitment to honesty and its growing intolerance for dissent and free speech within its own ranks. Such intolerance cannot be contained … (and can change) the instincts and reflexes that drive the ACLU’s mission.” As Save the ACLU’s Mission Statement says, “These breaches of principle include the ACLU’s approval of grant agreements that restrict speech and associational rights; efforts by management to impose gag rules on staff and to subject staff to e-mail surveillance; a proposal to bar ACLU board members from publicly criticizing the ACLU; and informal campaigns to purge ACLU of its internal critics.”

This is exactly what happened internally at NOW, but unfortunately, former and current NOW leadership at the time did not have the courage, or perhaps inclination, to do what Hentoff and others have done for the ACLU. And I say “for” because there are two options: the ACLU will continue along, sucking up money from people who legitimately want the Bill of Rights to be defended, but will instead be used by leftists to promote a nihilistic, anti-US agenda, all in the name, ironically, of individual liberty and freedom.

Or, people like Hentoff and his compatriots will force a clean sweep of leftists, allowing a legitimate, non-leftist ACLU to rise from the ashes. It is possible–it all depends on leadership.

I was probably the last gasp of a NOW chapter president and national board member who represented an authentic, non-partisan feminist framework. Those values, of course, completely conflict with the leftist agenda and must be purged. Apparently, this civil war between authentic civil libertarians and leftists at the ACLU now cannot be ignored.

The American feminist establishment is dead. It has been for some time. They still soak up a few million dollars a year, but they are effectively irrelevant. The dissenters at the ACLU, authentic progressives who want the ACLU to get back to core values, have a chance at changing the organization.

For examples of how and why the ACLU has become a national leftist scourge visit Stop the ACLU. To see what Hentoff and others are trying to do to change and save the organization, visit Save the ACLU.