Liberty Makes Us Unfree?

-Source-Reason- What purpose is served by the American Civil Liberties Union? I know that the words civil liberties appear right there in the name but its increasingly difficult to take that seriously as the organizations mission. Just a month after leaked internal ACLU case-selection guidelines revealed the organization to be stepping back from viewpoint-neutral advocacy of free speech rights the ACLU claims that vigorous advocacy for self-defense rights is to blame for government expansion of the security state. Mass shootings create a pervasive sense of insecurity and anxiety that politicians and policymakers will inevitably seek to address senior policy analyst Jay Stanley insists on the ACLUs Speech Privacy and Technology Project blog. As a result he argues those who support expansive gun rights as a protection against excessive government power should strongly consider how much government intrusion and expanded power theyre willing to trade for those rights. This is the old why do you make him hit you? argument applied to civil liberties. It excuses the actions of the abuserthe state in this caseas reactions to the missteps of the abused. But its actually a step further removed because most gun owners fly entirely below the states radar. Theyre among the general population getting slapped by policies that politicians justify as responses to the crimes of a tiny minority. This is also a blame-the-innocent argument that can be applied to so many civil liberties. The FBI wants back doors into cell phones because terrorists and criminals occasionally use encryption? You wouldnt have to worry about overreaching law enforcement if youd just drop your stubborn advocacy for privacy. Authoritarian politicians want to clamp down on the Internet because a few basement dwellers get radicalized in online chat rooms? We could calm the calls for censorship if youd abandon your defense of free-wheeling speech rights. Anybody with a limited taste for defending freedomor an actual hostility to the samecan construct a similar stop making them hit you argument against the exercise of any sort of liberty that makes government officials nervous. Which means that theres no end to it because the whole idea of people going through their lives unguided and unmonitored ultimately keeps government officials awake at night. Thats why theyll grab for any excuse at hand to expand their power and control.